


Misbegotten

by CorvetteClaire



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst and Humor, Established Relationship, Exasperated Weasleys, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Light Angst, Magical Inheritance, Manipulative Malfoys, Multi, Not-so-nurturing Draco, Nurturing Harry, Post-War, Questionable Consent, Snarky Malfoy-style Humor, magical law
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2019-10-24 02:35:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 57,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17696000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CorvetteClaire/pseuds/CorvetteClaire
Summary: Draco Malfoy is not particularly fond of children and has no desire to produce any. His life is perfect the way it is, thank you very much, and he is SO over all that Pureblood Dynasty shite!Unfortunately for Draco, his parents are not ready to let the Malfoy and Black legacies die. The unparalleled stubbornness of their son and heir only forces them to get creative.





	1. Birthday Surprises

**Author's Note:**

> **PLEASE NOTE:** At the request of a reader, I have added a tag warning about implied/referenced non-con sex. I still do not believe that the story requires an Archive warning for rape, since the circumstances are completely unrealistic and the sex itself happens off-stage, but the characters do discuss it at some length, so I think a "referenced" tag is warranted. If this is triggering for you, proceed with caution!
> 
> A NOTE ABOUT CONSENT: You'll notice that I included "Questionable Consent" in my tags but did not include a warning about Non-Con/Rape. This was a careful choice and I hope the right one.
> 
> The story does contain references to an act that, within the context of this particular Magical world, is considered rape. I chose not to tag it as such because it isn't rape in any real sense (it couldn't happen in the real world) and it's never described in any detail. I honestly don't think it could trigger anyone, and I don't want to present the story as dark, violent or painful. It isn't meant to be. It's meant to be funny, with a light dusting of angst/conflict and a healthy dose of Malfoy Snark.
> 
> That said, if you are disturbed by any reference to rape, however imaginary, DO NOT READ THIS STORY.
> 
> Thanks and enjoy!

 

Contrary to popular belief, Draco Malfoy was not afraid of children. He didn’t particularly like them, and his patience with the lowborn varieties was severely limited, but he got on quite well with the better sort. That was why he made no protest when Granger dropped her youngest spawn on his lap, with instructions to _keep him out from under foot for awhile,_ then disappeared into the throng of celebrants.

It was 5th June and the day of the elder Granger-spawn’s birthday party. It was also, perversely, Draco’s birthday, and he had foolishly assumed that he would be spending it doing something he enjoyed. He had clung to this vain hope until Potter informed him over breakfast that they were due at Rose Granger-Weasley’s birthday romp before lunch. He had argued. He had pleaded (no, Draco was not above pleading in a good cause). He had pouted. But here he was, condemned to spend his birthday with a bundle of ginger hair, incomprehensible babble and bodily fluids on his lap, while the urchin’s older sister led a shrieking hoard of magical children through a slalom race on toy brooms in the back garden of the Burrow.

Hugo was a pleasant enough specimen of drooling idiocy, and under other circumstances, Draco wouldn’t object to spending time with him. He was cheerful, anyway, and he liked Draco’s hair. This was not entirely surprising. Draco was the only person in his limited sphere who had _actual, civilized hair_ , not a ginger rat’s nest or a wild mop of brown that no magic or Muggle device could tame. Draco’s long, smooth, shining plait was duly fascinating to the poor, hair-deprived brat. It was also the only soft thing about Draco, who was otherwise made up entirely of hard lines and sharp angles, so it was the only part of him a child could reasonably touch without risking bodily harm.

When Hugo grabbed his plait in one slimy fist and shoved it into his mouth, Draco just lifted a brow at him and hoped, idly, that he wouldn’t chew through too may of the strands. Or give himself hairballs. He really didn’t mind. He could spell his hair clean and dry when the boy was finished with him, and a mouthful of silver-blond hair would keep the urchin quiet.

He had Potter to thank for the plait-cum-teething ring. Draco had started the day with his hair pulled back in a neat queue, but Potter hated it when Draco wore his hair that way, claiming it made him look too much like his father. He had taken one look at the queue, smiled sadly, drawn his wand, and transformed it into a soft, gleaming plait that lay on Draco’s shoulder and hung halfway down his chest. Knowing the birthday girl’s fondness for bright colors, he’d added threads of silver and royal purple. Then he’d pocketed his wand and slipped his arms around Draco’s waist to plant a lingering kiss to his lips, murmuring, “That’s the ticket.”

It was all very sweet and affectionate and unbearably bossy. So how could Draco argue?

He hadn’t, of course. He’d put on his most down-scale, ‘hanging with the Weasley hoard at the Burrow’ clothes, and let himself be dragged to a three-year-old’s birthday party. Then, to add insult to injury, they’d tumbled out of the floo at the Burrow to find Lovegood busily decorating the faces of each new arrival with an array of paint and a deft wand. Harry ended up with a green and gold snake crawling up his throat and onto his face. It was brilliant, and Draco had spent most of the day fantasizing about licking that snake off, starting down in his collar and working up to the sweet spot just beside his eye. His own cheek sported a huge purple and silver butterfly—to match his beautiful hair Luna said, eyes shining with mad delight—which was as artfully rendered as Harry’s snake but had none of its _dignitas_.

Harry, of course, was in his element. He was a born caregiver, showering love and attention on anything shorter than himself that stumbled into his orbit. He had jumped at the chance to supervise the flying games and was now rushing about among the low-flying brooms, laughing and cheering and calling instructions to the dozen or more children swooping around him, while in imminent danger of losing his kneecaps. He was loving every second of it. Draco was not, but how could he demand that Harry leave when he was so obviously in heaven?

“Hey, Ferret.”

Draco glanced up to find Ron Weasley standing over him, a bottle of butterbeer in his hand and a wry smile on his face. “Weasel.”

“How’d you get roped into Drool Duty?”

“Just my stellar luck.”

Ron watched Hugo shove Draco’s plait into his mouth once more, the bright strands now soaking wet, and shook his head in disbelief. “Never knew one child could produce so much of it. That purple stuff isn’t poison, is it?”

“Ask Potter. It was his doing.” He looked down into the child’s sparkling eyes, which were fixed on him in open adoration, and smiled in spite of himself. “He hasn’t started foaming at the mouth yet.”

“Well, let me know if he does. I’ve got a bezoar around here somewhere… never leave home without one after sixth year.”

Draco rolled his eyes at that. They both knew that it was Draco’s clumsy attempt to kill Dumbledore that had necessitated the use of a bezoar to save Ron in sixth year and given him such a healthy fear of unintended poisonings. They also both knew that the incident had faded into the softened mists of memory, become another wild anecdote from the War Years, no longer able to wound or anger. And Ron’s years as an Auror had long since supplanted any childhood fears with hard experience. If he really did carry a bezoar around with him, it was because he knew how perilous life in the wizarding world could be for a Dark Wizard Hunter, not because he was afraid of Draco Malfoy.

“His tongue is turning purple. Does that count?”

Ron laughed. “His hand, too.”

Draco frowned and lifted the child’s free hand to look. Sure enough, its damp palm was liberally smeared with purple and silver face paint.

“Looks like he got you right across the cheek.”

Draco sighed. Extracting his wand from its sheath in his boot, he siphoned the mess off of Hugo’s hand, then tucked the wand away. “You are a menace,” he informed the gurgling boy.

“Want me to find Luna? She can fix your… what was that, anyway?”

“A hippogriff, of course. Or maybe it was a wyvern. Something cruel and deadly, anyway.”

Another laugh shook the other man. “Man-eating butterfly.”

Draco grinned in spite of himself.

“Need anything? Food? A drink?”

“No. Thanks.”

“I’ll leave you to it, then. Send up some sparks if you need a rescue.” With a sideways grin and a wave of his hand, Weasley turned to go. The last thing Draco heard as he started off toward the next clump of guests was a laughing, “Happy Birthday, Ferret!”

Bloody bastard. He knew. He’d let Potter drag him here and park him under a drooling infant, knowing that it was his birthday and he deserved better. He almost shouted, _Fuck you, Weasel!_ after him but remembered, just in time, all the tender ears around him and swallowed the words.

Slumping back in his chair, Draco let his eyes move about the lawn, ticking off the familiar faces and attaching them to one or more of the squealing throng. There were hoards of Weasleys in all sizes—ginger heads outnumbering the others by two to one—and a number of Weasley Spouses. Fleur had the usual collection of besotted swains around her, all watched by a tolerant Bill. Their daughter was one of those gingers on brooms, though her hair was more strawberry blonde than full-on red. Percy had at least three children by now and Ginny one, but like Bill’s offspring, hers had not inherited the Weasley Mop. She had Blaise to thank for that.

Most of the non-Weasleys were Gryffindor friends from their Hogwarts years, with a sprinkling of other Houses and some from even further afield. The only truly surprising guest was Viktor Krum. Just why Granger had seen fit to invite a world-class Quidditch star from Bulgaria to her daughter’s third birthday party, or how she’d actually talked him into coming, Draco had no idea, but he passed a few interesting minutes trying to figure it out. Krum didn’t appear to have a spouse or child with him, though it was possible that one of the children currently massed around Potter was his. Draco doubted it. He didn’t see any hook noses or surly, overhanging brows among them.

Draco and Krum had not seen each other since the Tri-Wizard Tournament and had never exchanged more than a few words, so it came as some surprise to Draco when the Bulgarian slouched over to his seat under the trees and came to a duck-footed halt in front of him.

“You are Draco Malfoy,” he said, in his heavy accent.

Draco just nodded, eyeing him curiously. The man was quite tall and Draco had to tilt his head back uncomfortably to meet his sunken gaze.

“Ve haf met before, I think.”

“Hogwarts,” Draco said coolly. He was no longer the star-struck boy who desperately wanted the Quidditch star to notice him. He’d had quite enough of being noticed, thank you very much, and didn’t need to curry favor with celebrities.

Krum nodded. A taciturn man, himself, he seemed to find it perfectly acceptable that Draco answered him so briefly. He pointed to the child on Draco’s lap and growled, “That is not yours. You are not vun of them.” A flap of his arm took in the hoard of Weasleys around them.

“No. This is Granger’s son.”

“Ah.” He nodded glumly. “Her- _my_ -own-ee. That tall girl is hers, too, I think. Vith thee hair.”

“Rose,” Draco said. This was the oddest conversation he ever remembered having—all monosyllables and non sequiturs—but somehow relaxing. He didn’t have to think of anything clever to say.

“She cannot fly,” Krum pronounced darkly.

“Neither can Granger,” Draco supplied.

“Humm. You are here vith Potter.”

Draco nodded again.

Krum’s dark eyes took in the smeared butterfly on Draco’s cheek and the long, color-streaked plait shoved in the baby’s drooling mouth. He did not smirk or sneer, but something about the way his eyelids drooped made Draco stiffen.

“I think, at first, this is Potter’s child and you are his vife.”

“Salazar!” Draco blurted out, before could stop himself. “ _Wife?!_ ”

Krum actually smiled. It was the first time Draco had ever seen a smile on his face, even in the countless photos printed of the man over the years. “Then I see the hair. Only Veezleys haf this hair. You are no Veezley, so this cannot be yours.”

“I’m no breeder, either,” Draco snapped, “and no _wife!_ ”

“I see this, too.” He paused, then said, “But you are here vith Potter.”

“I’m _always_ with Potter.” Draco’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Do you have a problem with that?”

Krum looked taken aback. “I only ask. This vas not so at Hogwarts, I think.”

“No.” Draco’s hostility cooled to caution, but he kept his eyes fixed on the other man’s face, waiting for some hint of disdain or disgust. “That was a long time ago.”

“It vas.”

“A lot of things have changed.”

“Humm.” The dark eyes dwelled sullenly on Hugo’s happy, drool-slicked face. “Some do not change. This is too bad.”

Draco almost laughed at the realization that the world’s most famous Quidditch player was carrying a torch for Hermione Granger. He managed to control himself and answer this doleful statement with due seriousness. “Granger and Weasley were meant to be. Even the Chosen One couldn’t come between them.”

The black brows rose in surprise. “Potter vanted Her- _my_ -own-ee, too? This does not make you angry?”

Draco sighed. “Of course not. I was trying to make a point.”

“Perhaps Potter vants a child like this one vith Her- _my_ -own-ee, but vithout the Veezley hair.”

“Seriously?” Draco demanded, sounding far more like Potter than he cared to admit.

“This vould make me angry, if I vere vith Potter.”

“He doesn’t want… oh, never mind,” Draco huffed, equal parts amused and exasperated. “This whole conversation is ridiculous. I hate to disillusion you, but not every man who meets her wants to breed with Hermione Granger!”

“Vell, you do not,” Krum said reasonably.

“ _Merlin’s bloody balls,_ ” Draco groaned, lifting one hand to mask his twitching lips from the watching Bulgarian.

At that precise moment, Ginny Weasley came striding over with a beaming smile of welcome trained on Krum. “Viktor! There you are! I want you to meet Gwenog… Hello, Malfoy. On Drool Duty, I see.”

“Weasley,” he said by way of a greeting.

“Sorry to interrupt your flirting, but I need Viktor.”

Draco just rolled his eyes at this routine taunt and waved them away. Once they were gone, he could indulge in a good laugh at Krum’s expense. Then he discovered that his bizarre chat with Bulgaria’s Gift to Quidditch had produced an unintended benefit. It brought Harry to his side.

The toy-broom slalom race had concluded, with a firm winner and only minor injuries, freeing up Harry for a brief chat with his Significantly Better Half. He came loping across the grass and collapsed into a heap of rumpled clothes, outrageous hair and groans of feigned exhaustion.

“What were you saying to Krum?” he asked, his eyes twinkling up at Draco. “He looked positively enthralled.”

“Krum? Enthralled? I’d go with sullen, morose, taciturn, and maybe a touch of melancholy.”

Harry laughed outright, bringing Hugo’s head around to stare at him, moon-eyed, a thick silver plait still hanging ludicrously from his mouth. Lifting a hand to tickle the baby’s cheek, Harry prodded again, “What was he so morose and sullen about, then?”

“Why? Afraid he was trying to pull me?”

Black brows rose up into his messy fringe. “Was he?”

“Hah! First, he mistook me for your wife—your docile, _fertile_ wife. Then he became convinced that you secretly wanted to reproduce with Granger, get yourself a big-brained baby like this charming mass of bodily fluids.”

“Seriously?”

“That’s what I said. But dear, kind Viktor was quite concerned for me. He felt I should be angry with you for slighting me.”

Harry quirked an eyebrow and pursed his lips to control the grin that twitched at them. “Trying to pull you. No question.”

Draco snorted. Hugo turned wide, questioning eyes on him, and he stroked the child’s outrageously-red hair in apology. “The truth is that he’s still pining for Granger. And if _she’s_ his type, I definitely am _not_.”

“Good, it’ll keep you out of trouble. You’re a pushover for any bloke with a really fast broom.”

“You’ve got a really fast broom,” Draco said hopefully.

“Tomorrow,” Harry said firmly, as he climbed to his feet again and bent to plant a kiss on Draco’s upturned mouth. “I’ll take you flying tomorrow, if you behave yourself today.”

“What else would you call this?” Draco demanded. “Letting this foul urchin teethe on my hair? Listening to Krum moon over Granger? Spending my birthday—my _birthday,_ Potter!—with an army of Weasleys who think I’m good for nothing but babysitting?”

“Do you want to organize the next broom race?” Harry asked with feigned generosity. “Only, if you’re tired of babysitting…”

“Bugger off, you insufferable git.”

“Watch your tongue around the foul urchin. Considering who his parents are, he’s probably storing up every word you say to throw back at you in another month or two.”

“Oh… _fuck off_ ,” Draco groused. Then he threw a guilty look around him to see if any of the parents had caught him soiling the ears of the innocent.

Harry laughed and started away, but Draco halted him with a final, desperate attempt to free himself of this infernal party. “Don’t we have to get home and feed the menagerie?”

“Soon!” Harry called, waving over his shoulder as he trotted away.

 

* * *

 

They did, in fact, have to get home to feed the menagerie.

In his quest to save the entire fucking world, Harry had filled Grimmauld Place with a constant stream of sick, injured, abandoned and unwanted creatures, both Magical and Muggle. The majority left when strong enough to care for themselves, but new ones always replaced them, and a few were permanent residents. At the present time, his menagerie consisted of: a one-eyed owl with no depth perception that routinely flew into window frames and doorjambs; an ill-tempered cat with a tattered ear and pronounced limp; a cage full of rats; a hedgehog; a salamander that lived in the kitchen fire; and three snakes that mostly stayed in the back garden (to spare the rats) but came into the kitchen for a chat with Harry and a kip by the warm stove.

Draco did not share Harry’s Savior complex, but he’d grown used to the menagerie and encouraged it as an outlet for his soft-hearted lover’s nurturing instinct. Harry needed something to love. Many somethings. And Draco could think of much worse objects for that love than a clumsy owl, a salamander and a trio of sociable snakes. So he greeted each new addition to the hoard with a sigh, a roll of his eyes, and a grumbled reminder that Harry would have to clean up after the whatever-it-was when it messed the carpets, but no actual protests. And he liked the snakes. He’d even learned to say ‘good morning’ in Parseltongue.

Harry detached them from their hosts late in the afternoon, with the excuse that he had to stoke up the salamander’s fire and clean the rat cage. Handing Hugo off to Ron, he pulled Draco into his side before anyone could foist another child off on either of them. A hurried farewell, a quick trip through the floo, and they were home in Grimmauld Place again—alone at last. Except for the menagerie, of course, but that lot could wait. Draco could not.

No sooner were they out of the fireplace in the first floor drawing room, than Draco pulled Harry into his arms and kissed him.

“You’re going to fucking pay for that,” he mumbled against his lover’s lips.

Harry hummed happily and spun Draco around to push him up against the nearest wall. “For what?”

“Ruining my birthday.” He lunged forward, capturing the other man’s mouth, and bit down on his lip. “Leaving me alone with a drooling brat, while you paraded around in those fucking gorgeous jeans. Making me wait and wait and wait…” His breath hitched when Harry ground against his rock-hard cock, then he strained still more desperately into the plundering kiss.

“Your birthday isn’t over,” Harry reminded him, lips stroking his with every word. “What can I do to fix it? What do you want?”

“Nngh!” Draco groaned. His hand pushed between them, skimmed down Harry’s chest and found the lump in his jeans. He closed his fingers around it and squeezed. “I want that inside me.”

“One birthday fuck, coming up,” Harry said with a chuckle.

He had Draco’s trousers open and pushed down to his thighs, his pants peeled down after them, in a matter of seconds. He paused there to savor what he’d uncovered, sliding his hands around Draco’s hips to clasp his naked buttocks and pull them away from the wall. Draco felt his throbbing cock rub against rough denim and moaned wantonly into his lover’s mouth. Harry responded by pushing his fingers between Draco’s cheeks and teasing him with a delicate touch.

“Is that where you want it?”

“You know it is.” A fingertip pushed into him, and he groaned, “ _Fuck_ , Harry!”

“All in good time. How’d you get so hot in the thirty seconds it took us to floo home?”

“I’ve been hurting for you all day, you git. It got so bad that I almost dragged sodding Krum into the bushes for a shag! Oh, f…!” Two fingers entered him, startling him out of his teasing and dragging a cry of pleasure from him. “F-fuck! Harry… please!”

Harry vanished his clothing with a silent spell, and Draco eagerly lifted his legs to wrap around the taller man’s waist. The fingers drove deeper into him. Draco leaned back against the wall, letting Harry bear his weight, and rolled his hips up in a potent, wordless invitation. His cock lay on his belly, swollen and stiff and weeping with hunger. Draco watched Harry through slitted lids—watched Harry watching Draco’s beautiful, dripping cock—and licked his lips in anticipation. He saw the flames leap up higher in Harry’s bottomless green eyes, saw a fierce little smile tilt his lips, and braced himself for the first punishing thrust.

It was always punishing, no matter how carefully Harry prepared him. Harry was simply too big for Draco to hold easily, but Draco didn’t mind a bit of pain with his sex, and he never shied away from Harry’s assault on his too-tight arse. In fact, he welcomed it. Craved it. Demanded it. And every once in a while, when he was so hungry for Harry that he discarded even his dignity, begged for it.

He was there today. He’d told the truth when he said that he’d been hurting for Harry all day, and now, he was prepared to do anything to get what he wanted. Even beg.

“Do it, Harry!” he gasped. “Please… do it…”

Harry gave a tremendous heave and drove into him in one long, steady, brutal thrust. Draco moaned and shuddered, his thighs straining wider apart in his eagerness to feel Harry between them. Pain coursed through him, lighting his nerve endings on fire and, somehow, turning to pleasure. His cock lifted hungrily. His breath sobbed in his chest. His hands scrabbled for a hold on the bare wall, a solid point where he could anchor himself. Then Harry began to move.

It was fierce and messy and bruising and bloody perfect. Draco was slammed into the wall with each thrust, his head thrown back, sobbing for more even as he emptied himself across his own stomach. Harry just laughed in his rough, gloating way and drove into him even harder, until Draco felt him tense and coil himself for the plunge. When he came, he filled Draco with a hot slickness that seemed to fuse their bodies together. Draco groaned his approval, eyes still closed and cock already hardening again. Harry fastened his mouth to Draco’s throat and sucked hard.

“Happy birthday, Malfoy,” he murmured into bruised, sweat-dampened flesh.

“Getting there,” Draco gasped. Then, with a roll of his hips to push his filling cock into Harry’s loins, “Upstairs. Bed. Now.”

Harry laughed again—he laughed a lot in Draco’s company, which warmed his lover’s blood faster than any touch—and pulled Draco into his arms. A lurch, a breathless squeeze, a sharp crack, and they were standing in their bedroom two floors up. Harry turned them both around and lowered Draco onto the huge bed.

“I have to feed the animals,” he murmured against Draco’s clinging lips.

“Fuck the animals,” Draco growled.

To which Harry replied, in his most throaty and seductive voice, “I’d rather fuck you, but if you insist…”

“Potter, you complete arse!”

“Yeah, that’s what I was planning to fuck. Yours, I mean.”

Draco growled and shoved at his shoulder, knocking him sideways. Harry rolled onto his back and pulled Draco’s smaller body atop his. To Draco’s infinite delight, he saw that Harry was stark naked—his thoughtless, blatant use of power to do everything from stripping off to reheating his coffee could still take Draco by surprise and get his blood boiling—and rock hard. His strong hands clasped Draco’s hips, lifting him and moving him into position.

“You said you wanted to fly,” he growled, “so climb on!”

Draco let out a long, wanton moan as he sank down on Harry’s eager broomstick. It hurt—Sweet Salazar’s Cock how it hurt!—but he loved this position. Loved taking that Firebolt of Harry’s so deeply into him that it practically carried him into orbit. Loved riding it harder than any racing broom. Loved coming apart on it while Harry watched him with glowing, adoring eyes.

He began to rock, pulling against the hardness nearly tearing him in half. A sizzling jolt of pleasure went through him. He moaned and clutched at Harry’s chest, eyes fluttering closed.

This… yes, this was what a birthday was supposed to be. This was… _Merlin’s Balls!_

Harry bucked beneath him, his hands clamped on Draco’s hips to hold him down. Pain and ecstasy shot through him, and he cried out helplessly. Harry growled an order that Draco could not understand, so lost was he in the sensations coursing through his body and the climax already pulsing in his guts.

Just as he was poised, ready to let go, another jolt of power hit him, but this one was entirely wrong. It came from outside. Cold and sharp and demanding.

“Harry!” he gasped, eyes flying open. “Did you…?”

“The wards,” Harry panted. He lifted his head to peer at Draco through a red haze of lust, but he did not loosen his hold or stop thrusting.

“Someone’s at the d… door…”

“They can wait! Oh, _gods_ , Draco!”

He moved faster, pushed harder, and Draco began to shudder and moan. Some corner of his brain registered that they needed to find out who was standing on their stoop, but that corner didn’t stand a chance, with Harry assaulting his senses and destroying his brain cells.

Less than a minute later, Draco gave a breathless cry and came all over Harry’s chest. Harry watched him with those burning eyes, a smile twitching at his lips even as he continued to pound into Draco’s arse. A final heave, a tearing groan, and Harry came in rush of heat and wetness. Draco groaned with him and let his head fall back in abandon.

“Fuck… fuck, you’re beautiful…” Harry muttered between gasping breaths that shook his entire body. “I fucking love you like this…”

Draco gave a sob of laughter. “Full of you?”

“Full to the brim. C’mere.”

He snaked a hand up to catch Draco’s arm and draw him down. Draco slumped forward, boneless and sated, to press his forehead into the other man’s shoulder. Harry stroked his bowed back, his hair, his thigh, touching him everywhere he could reach, while they both breathed and shook and melted into each other.

Finally, Draco mustered enough energy to whisper, “We have to answer the door.”

“No one rang.”

“They were inside the wards.” He paused, concentrating on the feel of the magic around him, then added, “Still are.”

“Yeah. Whatever.”

With a last stroke of his hand along Draco’s taut thigh, Harry gave a weary groan and pushed himself up on his elbows. Draco slid sideways, off his lap and his softening cock, to fetch up in a tangle of nerveless limbs. He gazed up at Harry with a pleading look, and the other man chuckled.

“No, you don’t have to get dressed, you lazy sod. I’ll see who’s there.”

“I love you, Harry,” Draco murmured sweetly, which earned him a swat on the bum as Harry rolled to his feet and headed for the heap of clothes in the corner.

He watched his lover pull on pants, jeans and socks but whimpered a protest when Harry shoved his arms into the sleeves of his shirt. That was entirely too many pieces of clothing for Draco to remove when the annoyance of their uninvited guest had been dealt with, and he fully intended to remove them. All of them. Immediately and possibly permanently. Popping as many buttons and tearing as many seams as he could to render said clothing useless in future. Because he wanted Harry naked in his bed for as long as he could keep him there. A day, at least. Maybe two. Maybe more. So who needed clothes?

“Be right back,” Harry said, throwing him a cheerful wave as he loped out the door.

That was when Draco realized that he didn’t want Harry out of his sight. Not even just to answer the door. No, _especially_ not to answer the door, since uninvited guests meant distractions and delays and demands that would interrupt his lovely birthday celebration.

Rolling off the bed, he ran down the stairs in his skin and into the parlor where Harry had first banished his clothing. It was all piled on the sofa—not folded, Harry never bothered to fold clothes with his magic—and Draco scrambled into it with undignified haste. He was fumbling to fasten his zip without catching the hem of his oversized t-shirt in it, when Harry bounced into the room carrying a large box.

Draco’s eyes widened in delight. “Ooh, a present!”

Harry chuckled and tilted the box to study the outside curiously. “It was sitting on the porch.”

“What is it? What did you get me?” Draco demanded, sidling up to slide his arms around Harry’s waist. “Are you trying to spoil me, or just get into my pants?”

“Not me, I swear. I don’t know where it came from.”

That was when Draco noticed the neat holes punched in the sides of the box, just below the lid. Air holes. His brows snapped together and his smile turned to a threatening scowl.

“That had better not be an animal, Potter!”

“I _told_ you, I don’t know…”

“Because if you’ve brought another fucking animal into this house—on my fucking _birthday_ , no less—I’m _leaving_ it!”

“Quit bitching and let me open it!”

Draco let go of Harry and stepped back, his scowl still firmly in place but his annoyance shading into curiosity. If Harry did not know what was in the box, then it really was a surprise, and Draco _loved_ surprises. Almost as much as he loved coming undone on Harry’s magnificent cock.

Harry set the large box down on the nearest chair and slid off the lid. Draco leaned in beside him to get a look. He stared. Froze. Blinked. Then swore, _“Bloody Hell!_ ”

 

**_To be continued…_ **


	2. Home to Mummy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, we all know what's in the box, right? :)

 

“What have you _done_ , Potter?!”

“Me?” Harry’s eyes flew to his face, then narrowed dangerously. “What have _you_ done?!”

“Oh, no! _Fuck,_ no! You’re not going to turn this around on _me!_ I’m not the one who waltzed in here with a… a…”

Harry snorted in amused contempt and reached into the box, igniting a flare of panic in Draco.

“ _Don’t touch it!_ ” he squeaked, earning him another snort and an eye-roll from Potter.

“Relax. It won’t bite.”

Draco knew perfectly well it wouldn’t bite. Merlin, it didn’t even have teeth! But he also knew perfectly well what would happen if Harry got his hands on it. Their life together would be over. Draco Malfoy’s perfect life would be _fucking over._

Harry reached for it again and Draco whimpered, “No… don’t…”

But it was too late. Oblivious (or just impervious) to his lover’s distress, Harry lifted a softly swaddled object from the box that he nestled expertly into the crook of his elbow. Draco edged back a step, trying to distance himself from the Unforgivable Curse in his lover’s arms, while Harry gazed down at it in patent delight.

It was a baby, so tiny and new that it looked unfinished, wrapped snuggly in a blanket printed with fluffy, yellow ducklings. It had porcelain-white skin, a fine down of nearly colorless hair, and crystalline lashes fanned beneath its closed eyes. One round fist lay tucked against a pink, puckered bow of lips, and it smacked them gently in its sleep.

“Look at you.” Harry cuddled the baby closer, cradled its head in his palm and made idiotic kissing noises at it. “Poor little angel,” he crooned, “left out in the cold on a strange stoop. But we’ve got you now… yes, we do… yes…”

Draco turned away, making gagging noises, but Harry ignored him. All his attention was focused on the little body in his arms, snuggling close to him for warmth. Or so Draco thought, until he heard Potter say in that dreamy, lilting voice,

“There’s a letter in the box. Have a look at it.”

Draco pulled the box closer and peered inside. It was padded with what appeared to be terrycloth bath towels in various faded colors. Peeking out from the folds was a blue parchment envelope.

“Probably from your girlfriend,” Draco groused, as he plucked it out.

“No doubt,” Harry replied absently, once more making kissy-noises at the thing in his arms.

Draco snorted, then glanced down at the envelope in his hands and felt his stomach drop. “What the fuck…?”

Harry glanced up. “Hmm?”

“Nothing. Never mind.” He tore open the envelope with unsteady fingers, trying very hard not to see his own name written across it in flowing script, and pulled out a single, folded sheet of pale blue parchment. The note inside was short and to the point. It read:

 

_Draco,_

_This belongs to you. I did my part, as agreed, and don’t want anything more to do with it._

_Don’t bother trying to contact me._

_F.C._

 

His hands shook even more, making the paper dance and the words blur.

“Let me see it.”

Draco glanced up from the page to see Harry now watching him with keen, curious eyes. He swallowed once, painfully, and held out the note to him. Harry freed a hand to take it, read it in a single glance, then turned a piercing gaze on Draco that seemed to nail him to the floor.

“Who’s F.C.?”

“I don’t…” Draco swallowed again, shook his head, took a step back from his lover and the baby in his arms. “I don’t know.”

Harry laughed, but it wasn’t the loving, seductive sound that Draco was used to. It was harsh and cutting. Almost ugly. “Seriously? That’s your story?”

“I don’t know,” Draco repeated, more loudly. “I _don’t!_ ”

“You agree to have some witch bear your child and you don’t bother to learn her name?”

“I didn’t. Harry, I didn’t! You _know I didn’t!_ ”

Something about the frantic note in his voice must have touched Potter, because the other man looked taken aback. The tension left his shoulders and his gaze softened. He was frowning, but it was more in thought than in anger, and Draco felt some of his own panic ease.

Potter was fair. Always. And smarter than your average Gryffindor. He wouldn’t condemn his lover on the basis of one, mysterious, nearly-anonymous note and a baby in a box, no matter how damning they appeared.

“Sit down,” Harry said unexpectedly.

Draco sat. Harry settled into the chair facing him, the baby still cuddled in his arms, and turned those irresistible Auror’s eyes on him.

“Okay, let’s figure this out.”

“I don’t know any F.C., Potter, and I didn’t come to an agreement to get _any_ baby, by _any_ means! Much less to father one!”

“I believe you.”

Draco’s mouth was open to deliver a heated defense, but this simple statement halted him in his tracks. He gaped for a moment, then remembered his dignity and brought his teeth together with a snap.

“You do?”

Harry grinned shamefacedly at him. “Funny sort of partner I’d be if I didn’t.”

Draco opened his mouth again to reply but couldn’t come up with anything, so he was relieved when Harry kept talking.

“But we still have to figure out how this baby ended up on our stoop.”

“I didn’t cheat on you, and if I had, it wouldn’t have been with a witch.”

“Good to know.”

“In fact, I _couldn’t_ cheat on you with a witch!”

“Also good to know, though I already suspected as much.”

“So that baby can’t be mine, whatever this F.C. says.”

“Then why does she—we have to assume it’s a ‘she’—think it is? She must have some reason to believe you could have fathered her child.”

“Maybe she’s a lunatic? Delusional? Pining after me from afar and convinced I succumbed to her charms one stormy night?”

Harry cocked an eyebrow at him and smiled with some of his usual warmth. “Working on a novel in your spare time?”

Draco scowled at his teasing. “Fine. We both know who has the delusional fangirls in this relationship, and it’s not me.”

“You don’t want them. Trust me.”

“No, I don’t. And I don’t want some lunatic’s baby foisted on me, either.”

“It’s a sweet baby…”

“ _No_ , Potter! It’s not! It’s a _baby_ , and they’re never _sweet!_ So wipe that stupid expression off your face and quit acting like you just caught the Snitch at the Quidditch World Cup, because we are _not_ adding an abandoned baby to your fucking menagerie!”

“Not to the menagerie, no. But if it’s yours…”

“It’s far more likely to be yours!”

Harry blinked at him, nonplussed. “How do you figure that?”

Draco flushed in embarrassment and annoyance. “Well, you’re the one who’s actually put his prick in something capable of bearing children, aren’t you?”

“Who, _Ginny?_ That was years ago, you berk!”

It still stung in ways it absolutely shouldn’t that the man who warmed Draco’s bed and filled his body had done the same for a woman. And a _Weasley._ The Weasleys were family, friends, sparring partners, chess opponents, any number of things, but not bedmates. Never bedmates. And Ginny didn’t even have the right body parts. Better _Ronald_ (perish the thought!) than _Ginny!_

“You’re still one up on me!” he shot back.

“This baby is only days old! Whoever fathered it, he was putting his prick where it didn’t belong _months_ ago, not _years!_ ”

“How do you know it’s only days old,” Draco grumbled, sure that Harry was right but unwilling to grant him an easy victory.

“I’ve been around a newborn or two in my time,” Harry said, rolling his eyes.

“So who were you fucking nine months ago?”

“Duh. You.”

“Who else?”

Harry cocked his head, eyeing Draco a trifle sadly. “No one, you git. What about you?”

“Half the French Foreign Legion, of course. But none of them had wombs.”

To his relief, Harry chuckled at this weak joke, and the sound was as soft and loving as it should be. “I hope you remembered your Protection charms.”

“Always.” Draco’s own smile died, as he let the reality of what they were discussing finally soak through the shock, outrage and defensiveness that had armored him to this point. “Nine months ago was what… September?”

“End of August, beginning of September. Why? You weren’t really off fucking strangers last Autumn, were you?”

“No.” He swallowed, and suddenly, all urge to tease or joke drained out of him. “I was in France with my parents. Remember?”

An arrested look came over Harry’s face, his eyes going unfocused. “That’s right. You spent a couple of weeks at the Chateau.”

“And you refused to go with me, because you were too busy at work.”

“Your parents didn’t want me there,” Harry retorted automatically, trotting out the excuse he always used for skiving off from family obligations. Then his eyes abruptly came back into focus and fixed on Draco. “They didn’t even ask after me that time, did they?”

Draco shook his head.

“None of the usual rot about showing respect to my partner’s family or making an effort to get along?”

Another shake of the head.

“What did they actually say when you showed up without me?”

Draco thought about it for a long moment, trying to reconstruct the scene in his head. It was difficult. One tense scene with his parents blended into the next, until they became a wash of disapproval and disappointment in the back of his mind. He remembered his mother’s tight smile and the disdainful curl of his father’s lip, but it could have been any of a dozen similar encounters that he’d dredged up.

“Very little,” he finally answered. “I vaguely remember my mother patting my arm and telling me that they’d see to it that I wasn’t bored… Oh, bloody hell!”

“It is the sort of thing your mother always says,” Harry temporized, but Draco was beyond being soothed.

He could hear his mother’s voice in his head, now. Honey-sweet and beguiling. The voice she used to bend everyone, from the most terrified house-elf to the fucking Dark Lord, to her inexorable will. Draco knew that voice, even loved it when he could sit back and watch it cast its spell over some other unsuspecting sap. But he had long since learned to shut his own ears to it. Except that, apparently, he hadn’t.

“Salazar’s cock!” he exploded, flying out of his chair and about the room in a whirlwind of fury. “She was playing me from the moment I arrived! That… that… _Slytherin bitch!_ ”

“Did you just call your mother a…”

“Yes, I did, but that doesn’t mean you can,” Draco snarled, pausing in his frantic pacing only long enough to pin Harry with a killing glare. Then he was off again. “I should have spotted it the moment I portkeyed in. I _would have_ , if you hadn’t melted my brain with sex right before I left!”

“Now it’s my fault your mother is a manipulative b-”

“ _Potter_ ,” he growled in warning.

“Sorry. What, exactly, did she do?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll bet you my entire family fortune that she did _something!_ ”

“So you don’t remember, er, dipping your wick where you shouldn’t?”

“I do not!” he nearly shrieked. “What I remember is my mother turning me up so sweet that my teeth ached! And my father… my father only made one crack about how I was failing the family the entire time I was there, which should have been all the warning I needed! Clearly, my brains were addled!” He threw another accusing look at Harry.

“So, your parents were up to something, but how does that end up in a baby Malfoy on our doorstep?”

“I _don’t know!_ Haven’t you been listening?! I _do not know_ how they could trick me into having sex with some… some… _woman_. And I’m not even close to being convinced that I did any such thing! But this all comes back to my parents. I’m sure of it.”

“You won’t hear any argument from me, but what’re you going to do about it?”

“Dump the brat on _their_ doorstep!”

“ _What?!_ No! Draco, you can’t…”

“They're the ones who wanted it! They're the ones who care more about their sodding Family names than they do about their _son!_ ”

“Yes, but… it’s a baby, Draco. A _baby!_ You can’t hand it over to those two! Especially not if you’re right about them tricking you into fathering it against your will. I mean, that’s disgusting! And possibly criminal!”

“Don’t go all Auror over this, Potter. We don’t know that they did anything.”

“They must’ve done something, or we wouldn’t have a baby in our parlor right now.”

“It could be anyone’s baby.”

Harry snorted at that and rolled his eyes. “Have you looked at it?”

“I don’t want to look at it,” Draco grumbled, turning pointedly away from Harry and the infant in his arms.

“Well, you’re going to have to, eventually, since it’s yours.”

“It’s not. It’s my parents’. They conjured it up from somewhere, so they can bloody well take care of it.”

“Oh, Draco, you can’t!” This time, Harry’s protest came out as a wail. He got to his feet, still clutching the infant, and followed Draco as he prowled the floor in an excess of rage and energy. “You can’t seriously think of giving it to Lucius and Narcissa. That’s just cruel! And look at it… look at this little face… so sweet and precious and _Draco_ …”

“Don’t, Potter. _Do not_ start with the sweet, little face routine, because I’m not falling for it. Not for one fucking second.”

“Okay, fine, don’t look at the baby. Look at _me_. Come on. Look at _me_ , Draco.”

He did. As usual, he couldn’t help himself. He was a fool for Potter in this as in everything else, and he couldn’t keep his furious scowl on the floor when his lover was tugging at him with that warm, cajoling, pleading voice.

He looked. He saw. He groaned in agony and turned to bang his head against the wall.

“Don’t,” Harry urged, standing close by his shoulder and speaking into his ear. “Don’t hurt yourself, Draco. Don’t fight me.”

“How can I, when you pull that kicked-puppy-dog thing, with your eyes and your smile and… _Fuck,_ Potter! What are you doing to me?!”

“Nothing, love. Just reminding you what a good, honorable, caring man you are. A man who would never dump his own child on a doorstep with nothing but a few old towels to keep it warm, or hand it over to a pair of bloodsuckers like your parents to raise, or break his lover’s heart by hurting an innocent child.”

“Fuck you, Potter! _Fuck you!_ ”

Harry grinned and planted a kiss on his neck, just below his ear. “I love you too, my darling. So much.”

“Stop it, you insufferable git! You’re worse than my blood-sucking mother!”

“Oh, now, that’s harsh.”

“It’s the truth.” Draco stopped trying to splatter his brains on the wallpaper and turned a burning glare on his unrepentant lover. “You’re shameless. Absolutely shameless. And if you weren’t Harry Sodding Potter, Chosen Fucking Savior of the Entire Universe, I’d kill you with my bare hands and feed your corpse to the rats!”

“I know. I feel the same about you.”

Draco ground his teeth in helpless fury at Harry’s soft, laughing tone, so full of love and understanding that it made him want to spew on the spot. “I’m going to talk to my parents.”

A wary look came into Harry’s eyes. “Now?”

“Yes.” Draco turned on his heel and marched over to the fireplace. “I’m going to pry the truth out of them, one way or another.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea? Shouldn’t we get the baby settled and…”

Casting a scathing glare over his shoulder that strangled the words in Harry’s throat, he grabbed a handful of floo powder. “Shut it, Potter, if you still want to have a tongue to flap tomorrow morning.”

“But, your clothes!” Harry protested. “Your _face!_ ”

It was too late. Draco was already in the fireplace, spinning, disappearing in a flash of silver hair and green flames.

 

 

* * *

 

Draco blew into the parlor of Malfoy Manor in a swirl of fury and face paint. He had not stopped to wipe the butterfly from his cheek, tidy his hair, or change out of his Muggle clothing, so it was no surprise that his parents met his arrival with blank, disapproving stares. Narcissa was serving tea. Lucius had a delicate sandwich halfway to his mouth. Both froze as their son stormed into the room.

His mother recovered her senses in the next heartbeat and set down the porcelain teapot with exaggerated care. “Many happy returns of the day, darling.” One pale eyebrow lifted, pointedly ignoring his scowl. “You’re just in time for tea.”

“I didn’t come here for birthday wishes. Or for tea,” Draco snarled as he stomped up to the table in his bare feet and struck a pose with his arms crossed over his chest.

“What did you come for?” Lucius demanded. His eyes raked Draco’s slender form, and their lids drooped in silent derision. “And _what_ are you wearing?”

“Clothes, Father. Would you prefer I turned up in my birthday suit?”

“I would prefer that you dress as becomes your station, but that is obviously a futile wish,” Lucius replied in arctic tones.

“I’ve just come from a birthday party— _not_ my own—where wizard’s robes would be highly inconvenient.” Draco suddenly realized that his father was leading him down a rabbit hole and dragged himself back from it before he could totally lose sight of his reason for coming. “I came to thank you for your _generous gift_.”

Both his parents gazed at him in bafflement.

“What gift is that, dear?” Narcissa asked.

Draco sneered at her, assuming a sweetly nasty tone when he cooed, “Oh, certainly you remember, Mother. A nice, sweet, little bundle, nine months in the making?”

Understanding flooded her face. Her eyes skated over to Lucius and caught his for a burning moment.

“She was supposed to bring it here,” she murmured.

“Obviously, she had other ideas,” Lucius replied in the same low tone.

“Obviously!” Draco snapped. “Because she left _it_ in a cardboard box on our doorstep! Luckily for her, and for you, Harry has some fairly sophisticated wards that warned us of the breach and sent him up to investigate, or your _present_ would still be sitting out there!”

“Well, we never intended for you to be bothered with it, dear. Why don’t you just bring the child here?”

“Are you _insane?!_ ” In his rage, Draco conveniently forgot that this had been his first impulse and that only Harry’s protests had prevented him from acting on it. “Do you think for one bleeding moment that I’d hand my child over to you, so you could warp it into your image?! It’d do better being raised by _wolves_ than you two!”

“You didn’t do so badly,” Lucius pointed out, which only stoked the flames of Draco’s fury all the higher.

“Oh, _didn’t I?!_ Forced to serve an evil megalomaniac?! Condemned to wear his cursed Mark for the rest of my life?! Shunned by every civilized witch and wizard in our world?! Unable to find friends, a home, a decent job, all because of my _fucking name?!_ And that’s just in the last few years! Don’t even get me _started_ on my childhood… if you could even call it that!”

“Draco, dear,” Narcissa began, lifting a hand to catch his arm.

He jerked away from her touch and rounded on her with a snarl. “But what I’ll really never forgive you for is all this incredible shite about marriage and heirs and passing on the sodding Family Name—as if anyone wants it! I’m finally happy, no thanks to you, and now you’ve got to ruin it by… what? How did you even do it?”

He glared into his mother’s guarded, blue eyes, and she swallowed nervously. Draco bared his teeth at this silent admission of guilt and went on, “ _I_ certainly wouldn’t sleep with some witch, no matter how pure her blood, so how did you manage it? A potion slipped into my wine? A Love potion? Or did you put me under the Imperius Curse, force me to sleep with her, then Obliviate me afterward?”

“We didn’t have to force you into anything,” Lucius said in a disgruntled way. “You did the job more than willingly.”

“Bollocks!” Both his parents shot him a reproving look for his rudeness, but he ignored them. “I’m bent, Father, bent as a bloody coat hanger. I’ve never willingly fucked a witch and I never will.”

“Well, you fucked this one,” Lucius shot back, startling his wife and drawing a harsh, unamused laugh from Draco.

“Clearly, since the child his here. But why? You must’ve done something to me…”

“We didn’t have to, Draco,” his mother insisted. “I promise you, we didn’t.”

He rounded on her, eyes narrowed, ready to force his way into her head to find the truth, if she didn’t give it to him voluntarily. “Why should I believe you?”

“Because I’ve never lied to you. You’re my son. I love you. I respect you and the choices you’ve made…”

“Bollocks,” he said again, more waspishly this time.

“I do. I understand that you are happy with the life you’ve built, and I have no desire to take that away from you. But your responsibility to your family remains. Your duty. You may spend your life as the… the paramour of Harry Potter, but you are still the last of the Malfoy bloodline and the last _legitimate_ Black heir.”

“Teddy Lupin is every bit as legitimate as I am.”

Her face stiffened, but her eyes were sad. “He is not. His grandmother and mother were cast out of the family long before his birth, so he cannot inherit the Black Family legacy—financial, social or magical. Only you can. And through you, your child.”

“A child I could not have fathered through any normal, ethical means,” Draco insisted, once again dragging himself back onto the topic at hand. “I remember your friend’s daughter attending that party at the chateau last autumn. I even remember dancing with her. But I do _not_ remember having sex with her! So either you trapped me in some thoroughly disgusting way that you then had to wipe from my memory, or it’s all a lie and that’s not my baby!”

“It is your baby,” Lucius said heavily. “It had to be your baby, or it could not inherit the Malfoy and Black legacies.”

“It could be _yours_ ,” Draco countered, a sudden, nasty suspicion filling him and bringing a grimace to his face. “We look enough alike that you could probably pass your by-blow off as mine.”

“Physically, perhaps. But not magically, and as you are the eldest son, the legitimate heir, only a child of your body can inherit after you.”

“And that’s the only reason you didn’t do it?”

Lucius stiffened, his face hardening with regal disdain. “I would never dishonor your mother or defile myself in such a way.”

“No, but you’d dishonor Harry and defile me without a qualm!”

“Potter is nothing,” Lucius said dismissively. “If he were your spouse, a Malfoy by marriage, then the situation would be entirely different, but he is not. And you…” His lip lifted. “You have forced our hands.”

Draco supposed he should be grateful that this was the worst Lucius had to say about his love affair with Harry Potter, but he wasn’t in the mood for gratitude. He was still seething, sickened by thoughts of what his parents had done and enraged that he was now saddled with a child he didn’t want. A child that Harry was already more than half in love with, curse his sodding susceptible Gryffindor heart!

“You still haven’t told me how you did it,” he said through his teeth.

“We didn’t have to _do_ anything, except introduce you to the young lady. And tamper with your memory a bit, the next day,” he admitted reluctantly.

“I still don’t buy it. I wouldn’t take her to bed, no matter how pretty she was. Never mind that I couldn’t get it up for a witch if I tried… I wouldn’t do that to Harry!”

“Yes, but she wasn’t just any witch,” Narcissa said gently, “she was half Veela.”

Draco gaped at her in horror, his mouth hanging ludicrously open. “A Veela? A _Veela?!_ ”

“Half Veela,” Narcissa amended, “enough that no human male could resist her pull, no matter his inclinations.”

“You… you…”

“She agreed to produce an heir in exchange for a generous income from the Malfoy estate and a promise that she would not be required to raise the child.”

“I don’t fucking believe this,” Draco spluttered. “You actually _asked_ a Veela to breed with your son? To pollute your precious heir with non-human blood?”

“I know this kind of thing is frowned upon in British Wizarding society, but it’s viewed much more leniently in Europe and Scandinavia,” Narcissa said easily, “where most of the ancient wizarding families have some non-human blood in them. And times are changing, even in Britain. By the time your child is an adult, a trace of Veela blood may be an advantage, or at the very worst, a curiosity. It certainly won’t be the social barrier that it once was.”

“I… I don’t fucking believe this,” he mumbled, unable to come up with anything more useful.

“Don’t make so much of it, my love. Bring us the child, and we’ll care for it.”

“No!” Draco jerked himself out of his confounded state and bristled at her suggestion. “Not a bleeding chance!”

“You and Potter don’t want the burden of a child. And why should you? You’re young men. Free, unfettered, unconventional…”

“Enough, Mother. I am not handing my child over to you and Father to warp into a miniature version of yourselves. Besides,” he flushed slightly and let his gaze slide away from hers, “Harry likes it.”

“Draco…”

“ _No_ ,” he snapped. Tilting his head at its most arrogant angle—a pose that he suspected looked faintly ridiculous with his long, drool-soaked hair and paint-smeared face—he said coldly, “I came for the truth, and you gave it to me. I’m done here.”

As he turned on his heel and swept dramatically toward the door, his father called, “May we at least know the sex of the child?”

Draco paused, his hand on the doorknob, to shoot back over his shoulder, “That’s none of your fucking business!”

It was a petty act of defiance, pointless and more than a little beneath him, but it started a warm glow in the pit of his stomach. He was smiling to himself as he slammed out of the room and headed for the floo.

That would teach them to hook him up with a Veela.

 

**_To be continued…_ **


	3. With a Little Help From My Friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little bit more angst in this one - sometimes I just can't help myself - but hopefully it's still funny, overall.
> 
> Enjoy!

 

Harry lasted just about ten minutes after Draco’s departure before he floo-called Hermione. He didn’t want to. He knew how tired his friends must be after the madness of the birthday party, and he didn’t want to impose. He also hesitated to give Draco any ammunition in the upcoming battle, and the certain knowledge that Harry couldn’t look after an infant for a quarter of an hour without help would be all the ammunition a cold-blooded killer like Draco would need. But the truth was that his ease and confidence were all for Draco’s benefit. The moment the poor little thing woke up and started wailing for food, he lost his head.

He had no formula, no bottles, no nappies and no fucking clue. His only option was to call for help.

Hermione answered his hail looking weary and rumpled. When she saw Harry’s head floating in the fireplace, a flicker of annoyance passed over her face, quickly replaced by a friendly smile.

“Hullo, Harry. Forget something?”

“Huh? Oh, no, I just… umm…”

“Thank you for all your help today, by the way. I didn’t get a chance to say it this afternoon, but you were great. Rose loved her flying games.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Look, Harry, I’m really exhausted. Is there some reason you called?”

“Yeah, actually. I, umm, I need your help.”

She sighed. “Can’t it wait ’til tomorrow?”

“Not really, no. See, we have a little problem.”

“If it’s a ‘little’ problem, I’m sure it can wait. I still have to get Hugo bathed and…”

“Okay, it’s not that little. In fact, it’s kind of big.”

This time, the annoyance did not fade. “Honestly, Harry! What could possibly have happened between the party and now that two grown men—two fully qualified wizards, two _war heroes_ —can’t manage on their own?!”

Harry opened his mouth to reply, but Ron chose that moment to bend over his wife’s shoulder and demand, “What’s this about, mate? We’re knackered and we’ve got two sugared-up kids getting ready to tear the house down.”

“I just need to borrow Hermione for a few minutes.”

Ron rolled his eyes and Hermione huffed.

“I can’t just jump in the floo,” she insisted tartly. “If you need me that badly, you’ll have to come here.”

Harry thought about that for a moment. It was so _not_ what he wanted to do—pack up a squalling newborn, jump in the floo, and leave the house with no word to Draco—but he didn’t see an alternative. Not if any of the three of them wanted to survive the night.

“Okay. Let me just leave a note for Draco…”

“Wait, hang on. Where’s Ferret?” Ron asked.

“At his parents’.”

“Oh, Harry!” Hermione wailed, as if this simple fact explained everything.

“Seriously?” Ron groaned, at the same time. “He _went home to Mummy?_ ”

“It’s not what you think!” Harry protested, his face burning with embarrassment.

“I _think_ you and Malfoy had a fight, he scarpered, and now you want Hermione to fix your fucked-up marriage for you!”

“It’s not…”

“Whatever! Just grow a pair, Harry. Go get your fucking boyfriend and tell him to stop being such a git. Or if you’re the one being a git, apologize to him. Either way, let us get some fucking sleep!”

“Please,” Harry said quietly, deflating Ron’s anger in a breath. “I really need some help and I’ve got nowhere else to go.”

Ron stared at him for a long minute, then growled, “Right, only if you’re staying the night, you’re making breakfast in the morning.”

“I’m not! At least, I don’t think I am.”

“Malfoy staying at Mum’s, then, is he?”

“We didn’t fight, Ron! I told you…”

“That’s enough, Harry,” Hermione cut in, “just come through!”

 

Five minutes later, Harry stepped out of the fireplace in the Weasley’s sitting room, clutching a howling bundle in his hands and looking harassed. Hermione was waiting for him, tapping her foot and frowning. Then she heard the baby crying, and her mouth dropped open in disbelief.

“What in _Merlin’s name…_ ” she gasped, her eyes jumping from the squirming bundle of flannel to Harry’s embarrassed smile.

“Hey, ’Mione. I told you we had a problem.”

“That’s not a _problem_ , Harry,” she cried as she darted forward to snatch the infant from his arms, “that’s a _baby!_ ”

“Yeah,” Harry scrubbed a hand through his hair, then rubbed the back of his neck, still smiling in a hapless, shamefaced way, “I’d got that far on my own.”

“You have a baby!” She gazed at the little face, now screwed up in distress, and her own was masked in confusion. “You have a _baby?_ ”

“Yes. We’ve established that it’s a baby. Do you think we could move on? Maybe to the feeding and rocking and getting it to stop howling part?” Harry pleaded.

Hermione’s eyes lifted to his face. “Harry, how did you end up with a baby?”

“I’m not really sure, but I did, and now I have to take care of it. So, you see, I really do need your help.”

“Yes, I can definitely see that. Come to the kitchen and we’ll feed the poor little mite.”

She started toward the door, cradling the baby expertly in her arms and serenely untroubled by its furious wails. Motherhood seemed to have deadened her sense of hearing, because Harry found them almost unbearable. He was dancing from one foot to the other, unsure whether he wanted to grab the baby out of Hermione’s arms or make a dash for the door. Neither course of action was really feasible, so he shadowed her as she sailed down the hallway and into the kitchen. Then she turned and thrust the baby into his arms.

“I’ll give it some of Hugo’s formula. Luckily, I keep it around for emergencies.”

She went to a cupboard and pulled out a canister of powder. Harry watched her, fascinated and frustrated all at once, while she methodically mixed the formula and warmed the bottle with her wand. The whole time, the baby howled and kicked and made such an infernal racket that Harry wanted to cry in sympathy.

“What the _bleeding hell_ is going on in here?!”

Harry turned to see Ron barge into the room, eyes wild, clothing every which way, a rather crazed look on his face.

“I hear a baby crying! Why is there a baby crying in our kitchen?! ’Mione, tell me we haven’t had another baby while I was upstairs putting the old lot to bed!”

“No, of course we haven’t,” Hermione said in some amusement. “Sit down and be quiet, Ron.”

He obediently let his legs collapse and dropped into a chair. His bleared, red-rimmed eyes fastened on the blanket covered with ducklings, and he visibly struggled to make sense of what he saw.

“If it’s not ours, whose is it?”

“Harry brought it.”

“Harry?” Those dazed eyes lifted to Harry’s face but couldn’t quite focus. “Harry brought us a baby?”

“He isn’t giving it to us. He just needs a little help with it.”

“I couldn’t make it stop crying,” Harry said, pitching his voice loud enough to carry over the baby’s incessant wails.

“You have to feed it,” Ron said numbly.

“That’s what Hermione’s doing.”

Ron blinked, slowly, as if he had to concentrate to do it right. “Where’d you get a baby, mate?”

“Someone left it on our doorstep,” Harry said.

“ _What?!_ ” Ron and Hermione bellowed in unison.

“In a cardboard box. With a note.” He looked at their matching gobsmacked expressions and shrugged. “I thought it was a birthday present for Draco ’til I opened the box.”

“A _cardboard box?_ ” Hermione demanded, her face flushed with outrage. She bustled over to him, a bottle in her hand, and scooped the baby out of his arms. In the next moment, a blessed peace settled over the room as the baby started slurping at the bottle. “You must be joking!”

“Nope.”

“Who would leave a newborn baby on your doorstep in a _cardboard box?!_ ”

Harry shrugged again. “That’s pretty much how I ended up at the Dursleys’.”

“Oh, Harry!” Hermione cried, her face falling. “I forgot! I didn’t mean…”

“Don’t worry about it.” Harry bent to peer at the baby nestled in Hermione’s motherly arms. Now that it had stopped crying, it looked placid and innocent, all soft curves and smooth, white skin. It was beautiful. It looked like Draco.

Harry felt his heart lurch at the thought.

“I’ll do better than the Dursleys. I just have to learn the basics, like how to change a nappy and warm a bottle.”

“Harry…” Hermione ventured, her frown of concern deepening.

“You can’t keep just any baby that turns up on your doorstep, mate,” Ron cut in.

“It’s not just any baby,” Harry countered, looking at them both in surprise. Didn’t they get it? Couldn’t they _see?_ “It’s _Draco’s_ baby.”

Ron stared at him in blank disbelief. “Malfoy’s baby?” He swallowed, his throat working, as realization and rage blossomed together in him. “ _Malfoy’s?!_ Are you telling me that that little prick has been fucking around on you?!”

“No, of course not…”

“Yeah? Then how did you end up with his _fucking baby?!_ ”

“I… don’t exactly know.”

“I’m going to kill him!” Ron hissed, lurching to his feet and sending his chair skidding back from the table. “I’m going to Crucio his bollocks off, and then I’m going to _kill him!_ ”

“Calm down, Ron,” Hermione said severely.

“Calm down?! Why the fuck should I calm down?!”

“Because Harry’s the one who should be threatening to hex Malfoy’s balls off, and he doesn’t look angry, so maybe we’d better be quiet and listen.”

“I’m not angry,” Harry assured them.

“Yeah, but _why not?_ ” Ron demanded, as he dropped into his chair again.

Harry shrugged. “Draco was as gobsmacked as I was when he saw what was in the box.”

“So he didn’t know he was spreading his seed all over London?” Ron said sourly

Hermione pursed her lips at that. “Honestly, Ronald, must you be so crude?”

“He wasn’t _spreading his seed_ all over London,” Harry snapped, “in fact, we think it happened in France.”

Ron rolled his eyes and snorted in disgust. “And that’s better?”

“Shut up and let him tell it, Ron.”

“Draco didn’t cheat on me,” Harry said firmly. “Get that through your thick head, Ron, and stop making stupid threats. I don’t even know why you care if he did!”

“I care because you’re my best mate and he’s _supposed_ to be your partner! And because… well…” He flushed darkly and looked away from Harry’s startled eyes. “It was hard for me trust Malfoy, to think of him as a friend, and if he’s fucked that up… I don’t think I can forgive him for that.”

“He didn’t. None of this was his idea.”

“Then how did he end up fathering a baby?” Hermione asked.

“His parents arranged it.”

“Oh, that’s a brilliant excuse!” Ron huffed.

“It’s not an excuse. It’s the truth.” Harry squirmed uncomfortably in his chair, unhappy at the thought of what the Malfoys had done to Draco, even though he didn’t blame Draco himself. “They wanted a Malfoy heir and they knew Draco would never give them one voluntarily, so they… tricked him.”

“How?” Hermione asked sceptically.

“We aren’t completely sure. Draco’s over there now, trying to get the truth out of them.”

“I’m sorry, Harry, but I don’t see how he could…”

He silenced her with a look and said, through gritted teeth, “It doesn’t matter how. What matters is that this baby is Draco’s, which means it’s _mine_.” He straightened up and gave her a defiant look. “I know what it’s like to be dropped on a doorstep and have your life handed to a stranger who never asked for it. I know how awful it is to live with people who don’t want you, don’t love you, don’t even try to treat you like family, and I won’t let Draco’s child grow up that way. I won’t!”

“Oh, Harry, my dear, of course you won’t. But what about Draco? How does he feel about becoming a father?”

Harry felt his cheeks heat, but he refused to look away. “He’ll get used to the idea.”

Hermione and Ron exchanged a speaking glance.

“You said he went to see his parents?”

“Yes. He’s furious with them. He… he threatened to give the baby to them, since they’re the ones who wanted it, but I talked him out of it. Only, no one deserves to have Lucius Fucking Malfoy as a parent!”

“Ferret survived it,” Ron pointed out.

Harry shot him a burning look. “His baby’s going to do better than survive!”

Hermione gazed at Harry with fond exasperation and shook her head. “If Malfoy doesn’t want the baby, I don’t see how this is going to work.”

“He’ll change his mind,” Harry said, his jaw set stubbornly and his eyes blazing with certainty. “And until he does, I’ll look after it.”

“I don’t know, mate,” Ron said dubiously. “Being a father is hard enough when you’ve got someone to help. I can’t even imagine trying to do it with an angry Ferret stalking around the house, giving you the Malfoy Death Stare every time the baby makes a noise.”

“He’ll come around,” Harry insisted, earning him another eye roll from Ron and a sigh from Hermione.

“Does it even have a name?” Ron asked.

“No.”

“Is it a boy or a girl?”

Harry shrugged. “Dunno.”

Now it was Hermione’s turn to roll her eyes. Plucking the bottle from the baby’s mouth, she unwrapped it, peeled up its tiny t-shirt, and peeked into its nappy. “A boy,” she said smugly.

“A boy!” A wide, delighted grin spread over Harry’s face. “We have a son!”

“Girls are easier,” Ron informed him lugubriously.

“Too late to swap, now,” Harry laughed. “Is he doing okay?”

Hermione smiled with motherly affection. “He’s brilliant.”

“Even if he is a Malfoy,” Ron added with a reluctant grin.

 

* * *

 

Draco was furious when he stepped out of the fire in Grimmauld Place. He was furious when he stormed about the house, finding no Harry and no baby. He was furious when he found a note from Harry on their bed, informing him that he’d buggered off to Ron and Hermione’s. And he was more furious still when he stalked into the Weasleys’ kitchen to find his lover and his two closest friends chuckling over his misfortunes. The sight of his misbegotten brat snuggled sweetly in Harry’s arms, sleeping peacefully and looking like an advertisement for Adorable Infancy did not cool his temper one jot.

He instantly decided that he loathed fluffy yellow ducklings, among so many other things.

All conversation around the table broke off at his entrance. Three pairs of eyes fastened on him—Harry’s nervous, Hermione’s measuring, Ron’s decidedly hostile—and tracked him as he marched over to the empty chair at Harry’s side. He kept his head at its most arrogant angle and his shoulders squared defiantly, but that look on Weasel’s face hurt him in ways his parents’ disdain had not.

Summoning all his courage, he met Ron’s gaze for a long, burning minute. Then he flicked his eyes to Harry and said, acidly, “Told them everything, I see. Never could keep your mouth shut, could you, Potter?”

Harry shrugged and grinned with a lamentable lack of remorse. “I had to explain the baby somehow.”

“You could have stayed in your own bloody house.”

The smile widened, making Draco itch to hex it off his face. “Not if you wanted to hold onto your sanity. Or your hearing. This little fellow has a set of lungs on him that you wouldn’t believe.”

Draco felt his rage falter. “Fellow?” Something perilously close to curiosity stirred in him. “It’s a boy? How do you know?”

Harry rolled his eyes. “I looked, didn’t I. Well, okay, Hermione looked, but it amounts to the same thing. He’s definitely a boy, with all the appropriate equipment.”

Draco slumped back in his chair, scowling heavily. “That will make my parents ecstatic.”

“You talked to them?” Hermione asked.

Draco nodded.

“Looking like _that?_ ” Ron cut in, his voice dripping with contempt.

“Like _what?_ ” Draco countered, shooting Ron a challenging glare.

“Like you spent the day with a bunch of three-year-olds, then rushed off home to get… busy.”

Before he could stop himself, Draco lifted a hand to his damp, scraggly hair and flushed in embarrassment. He hadn’t taken the time to glance in a mirror, much less to tidy himself, but he had no doubt that he looked thoroughly debauched. Considering what he and Harry had been up to when the baby showed up on their stoop, he couldn’t possibly look any other way.

“Jealous, Weasel?” he taunted.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Ron shot back, his expression thunderous. “None of that Weasel and Ferret shite! Not when you’ve got a bleeding _baby_ to explain away!”

That hit him like a slap to the face, turning his cheeks flaming red and making his eyes sting treacherously. Had Ron really just said that? Had he really just repudiated the nicknames they’d given each other practically from the day they’d met? Okay, maybe he’d meant to be cruel when he first started calling the other boy ‘Weasel’ all those years ago, but that was longpast, like all the other hideous mistakes of his youth. Forgiven, if not forgotten. Or so he’d thought, until Ron threw his affectionate nickname back in his teeth.

Steeling himself, he pasted a sneer on his lips and drawled, “Spare me your moral outrage, _Weasel._ ”

“If you two will stop sniping at each other,” Hermione said sternly, “I’d like to hear what Malfoy’s parents said. Is Harry right? Are they responsible for…?” she nodded significantly at the baby.

“For the son I didn’t ask for and didn’t know I’d produced? Yes. Yes, they are.”

“But how?”

His sneer turned to a scowl. He began picking at a scar on the table top. “They hooked me up with a Veela.”

The others all reacted at once, Harry exclaiming, “A Veela!”, while Ron snorted and grumbled, “Lucky fucking you.”

But it was Hermione who shouted them all down, crying, “ _What?!_ Oh, Draco, _no!_ ”

The men turned to stare at her in surprise. She sat with a hand pressed to her mouth, eyes round with shock, staring at Draco as if he’d just told her he’d fathered an entire army of brats without knowing it.

He lifted a brow at her and waited. Whatever she knew that they didn’t would come out eventually. It always did. Usually in a flood of unwanted detail and insufferable superiority.

When she dropped her hand to speak, her lips were trembling. “Did you mean it? Did they really do that?”

“Yes.”

“A _Veela?_ ”

“Yes, Hermione, a Veela,” he said impatiently. “Half Veela, actually, but I don’t suppose it makes much difference.”

“It doesn’t. Not legally, anyway.”

His brows snapped together. “What do you mean, _legally?_ ”

“Draco, I…” Her gaze slid to Harry, then away, and her cheeks darkened. “Maybe we should discuss this another time.”

“Just say it.” He waved a hand in Harry and Ron’s general direction. “Whatever it is, they’re both going to hear about it soon enough.”

She opened and closed her mouth a few times, then finally said, “I’m sorry, Draco, but that Veela raped you.”

That statement fell like a dungbomb in the middle of the table, bringing a shocked silence in its wake. Harry stiffened and sucked in a hissing breath. Draco gaped at her, unable to come up with a single word in response to this preposterous statement.

Only Ron seemed to remember how to talk. “That’s completely mental!” he objected.

“It’s true,” Hermione assured him, her confidence returning now that the ugly word was out of her mouth.

“So what if it was a Veela? He still agreed to have sex with her!”

“No, Ron he didn’t.”

“But…”

“He didn’t agree, because he _couldn’t_.”

Ron scowled at her and mumbled, “Sorry, not buying it.”

“I don’t care if you buy it, it’s the truth.”

“I don’t understand, Hermione,” Harry said with preternatural calm.

Draco shot him a sideways look and was both reassured and annoyed to see him wearing his Auror face.

“You’re saying that Draco’s parents brought a Veela into their home so she could rape their son?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“How can you be sure of that with so little information about the incident?”

“Because it’s the law.” She huffed—a comfortingly familiar sound under the circumstances—and said in her best lecturer’s voice, “According to International Wizarding Law no human can legally give consent for sexual contact when in proximity to a creature that is one-quarter or more Veela. Of course, not all Veela are of equal power, and the authorities look at each case individually, but that’s the legal standard.”

Draco watched, owl-eyed, as Harry digested this bit of news. It never ceased to amaze him how different Auror Potter was to the man he knew so intimately. He respected the Auror, feared him just a little, and lusted after him a lot, but he didn’t think of him as his lover and partner. The man confronting Hermione now was not the man who shared his bed every night or fucked him up against the parlor wall or adopted every stray creature who crossed his path. No, this was the man who dueled Dark Wizards and out-maneuvered the wiliest criminals and defeated Lord Voldemort. And yes, okay, fucked him up against the parlor wall upon occasion, but that was neither here nor there.

The point was that he found the Auror sitting next to him both fascinating and intimidating, and he wasn’t at all sure that he had the mental fortitude to deal with him tonight. Not after everything that had happened and the revelations that kept hitting him like curses every time he turned around.

He reached out and clasped Harry’s arm. The other man started, turned frowning eyes on him, then visibly relaxed and smiled.

Draco recognized his lover in that smile, and the lump of ice in his chest melted.

Harry turned his attention back to Hermione, but he was a worried partner now, not an Auror on the case. “You’re saying that there was no way Draco could agree to have sex with this Veela, no matter what he said at the time, because he wasn’t in his right mind?”

“That’s exactly it.”

“So… hang on,” Ron cut in, still two steps behind as usual, “so any time that a bloke and a Veela have sex, it’s _rape?_ What if he wants it?”

“How can he _know_ that he wants it?” Hermione countered. “That’s the point, Ronald. It’s like… if I put you under the Imperius Curse and tell you to jump off the roof. While you’re under the curse, you think it’s a brilliant idea, even after you hit the ground and break every bone in your body. But when I banish the curse, and you find yourself lying there, dying in agony, you realize that you weren’t thinking straight. It’s the same thing with a Veela and sex. If she’s close enough to reach you with her magic, she can force you to do anything she wants. You won’t be able to resist and won’t know whether or not you really wanted her until she leaves you alone and the magic wears off.”

“But that means Bill didn’t really want to marry Fleur! He was just cursed by her Veela magic!”

“I’m sure that’s not true. For one thing, I doubt Fleur has that much Veela blood…”

“One quarter. Her grandmother was a Veela.”

“All right, then before they could get married, Bill had to give written consent.”

“How’s that work?”

“He’s removed from her influence until her magic dissipates, then he attests in front of witnesses that he wants to marry her and gives his consent for any conjugal activities that may occur in perpetuity. That’s signed, witnessed, sealed with magic and kept on file with the Ministry.”

“Bloody hell.”

“We’re kind of getting off the point here, aren’t we?” Harry said. “This isn’t about Bill and Fleur, it’s about Draco and what his parents did to him.”

Hermione’s gaze shifted over to Draco and notably softened. “What exactly did they tell you when you confronted them?”

“That they made an agreement with the daughter of an old friend to produce a Malfoy heir in exchange for a generous allowance from the estate.”

“So they _bought_ a mother for their grandchild?!”

Draco lifted an eyebrow at her. “You actually sound surprised.”

“Not surprised. Disgusted.”

He shrugged and let his eyes slide away to mask his embarrassment. “My parents have bought everything that ever mattered to them, so why not a grandchild?”

“Hey.” Harry reached over to squeeze his hand, a smile glimmering in his eyes. “They couldn’t buy you.”

“Apparently I don’t matter to them, since they _did_ buy someone to…” He twitched, as if struck with a Stinging hex, and clamped his mouth shut on the ugly word.

“Draco, my dear,” Hermione said very softly, one hand stretched across the table toward him, “why didn’t you tell someone about this? Harry or… me?”

He stared at her for a beat, dumbfounded, then said in his most scathing tone, “Because I didn’t _know,_ obviously!”

“Not about the child, no, but the other… you must have realized that you, er…”

“Had sex with a woman I’d only met a few hours before?” he demanded coldly. “Yes, I daresay I did realize as much when I woke up in her bed, but thanks to my ever-thoughtful parents, I don’t remember any of it.”

Her eyes widened to the size of dinner plates and her mouth dropped comically open. For once, Draco was not tempted to laugh. “They _Obliviated_ you?!”

“Do you honestly think I would have kept it from Harry, if they hadn’t?!”

“Oh! Oh, Draco!” she gasped, her hands coming up to cover her mouth once more.

“Stop saying my name like that,” he said tartly.

“Oh… _my!_ ”

“That’s not an improvement.”

“The fact that they Obliviated you afterwards makes it so much worse! It means they _knew_ you would never consent, they _knew_ they had done something unconscionable, and they had to hide it from you! I’m so sorry, Draco. I can’t even begin to tell you how sorry.”

“If you’re really sorry, you’ll go back to lecturing me on International Wizarding Law and stop wailing in that nauseating fashion.”

“I… Yes. Of course.” She swallowed resolutely, then said, “Just know that I understand you never meant for any of this to happen and never intentionally betrayed Harry. I know it, and so does Ron.” Her gaze found her husband and narrowed dangerously. “Or he will if he knows what’s good for him.”

“Hey.” Ron lifted his hands in surrender. “No argument from me. I’m sorry for being an arse, Ferret. I just saw red when I thought you’d been stepping out on Harry.”

“Fair enough. If I caught you doing something like that to Hermione, I wouldn’t waste time being an arse. I’d blast you out of your Chudley Cannons socks.”

The two men exchanged a slight, wry smile that effectively wiped the slate clean between them.

“Okay,” Ron said brightly, throwing off the uncomfortable intimacy of the moment, “now what? We’ve established that Lucius and Narcissa are a pair of evil, abusive, purebl…”

“Shut it, Weasel,” Draco snapped.

“Well, that is what we established, isn’t it? Did I miss something?”

“Do you want a list?”

“Boys,” Hermione warned. When they turned matching sullen looks on her, she went on briskly, “No, Ronald, you did not miss anything. I think Draco’s point was that he didn’t want to hear your strictures on his parents. But Ron’s point is a fair one, too. What do you want to do about this, Draco?”

Draco scowled at the sleeping bundle in Harry’s lap, wondering how he was supposed to answer that question.

Apparently, the charming young woman who had danced with him in his parents’ drawing room was a rapist. A Veela rapist. The Veela rapist mother of his son. _Godric’s gargantuan gonads_ , he had a _son!_ And now Harry wanted him to… what? Give him the child to raise? Put his parents in Azkaban? Send the Aurors after some French Veela twat who’d sold herself for Malfoy gold like so many before her?

_What the buggering fuck?!_

“I’ll tell you exactly what we’re going to do,” Harry said, bringing Draco’s panicked eyes up to meet his. He smiled with infinite understanding and went on, “We’re going to take this little man home and get him settled in. Then tomorrow, or the next day, or whenever you’re ready, we’ll figure out what to do about your parents.”

Draco opened his mouth to protest, but Harry cut him off. “Even if that means we do nothing at all. It’s up to you, Draco. I promise I won’t pressure you, and neither will these two.” He shot a meaningful look across the table at his friends.

“That’s all very well and good,” Ron countered, “but one thing can’t wait.”

“What’s that?” Harry demanded.

“Picking a name for the little blighter. You’ve got to have something to call him besides ‘little man’ and ‘foul urchin’.” He shot a grin at Draco, brows raised, and added, “See, I know you, Ferret. I know just what you’re thinking.”

Draco glared back, unamused by his teasing, but had to admit that Weasel had pegged it perfectly.

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Harry said, his eyes lighting up. “We could go with a star or constellation name, to fit with the Black tradition, or something Roman for the Malfoys…”

“Are you _mad?_ ” Draco shrieked. “I wouldn’t give my father the satisfaction!”

“But there are so many good Roman names,” Harry protested. “And the constellations mostly have Latin names, too. We could choose one like yours—not Draco Junior, that would be cruel, but Scorpius or Cygnus or Pavo. I like Pavo a lot; it means Peacock.”

“I know what it means,” Draco said through his teeth, “and I won’t have it, Potter. I won’t have my… my _offspring_ connected to either the Blacks or the Malfoys in any way!”

“We have to name him _something_ ,” Harry insisted.

Draco looked into his wide, shining, utterly enraptured eyes, saw the love already brimming in them, and set his jaw mulishly. “Bob.”

Harry looked taken aback. “What?”

“Bob. That’s his name.”

Ron laughed and rolled his eyes. “You’re taking the piss.”

“I am not.”

“Draco, you can’t name your son Bob,” Harry said patiently.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not a proper name. It’s short for Robert.”

“I don’t want Robert. Robert is ugly.”

“And Bob is better?”

Draco crossed his arms defiantly and stated, “That’s his name.”

“Okay.” Harry took a calming breath and tried again. “Why Bob?”

“Because it’s got nothing to do with Blacks or Malfoys or Potters or any wizard family anywhere. It’s just a name. _His_ name.”

Irritation finally got the better of Harry, ruffling his obnoxiously composed exterior. “Well, I’m not going to call him Bob. It’s ridiculous. He’s a wizard, and he deserves a proper wizard’s name.”

“You’re a wizard, and your name is _Harry_ sodding _Potter._ ”

“Yeah, well, your son deserves better. Besides, his last name is Malfoy, and Bob Malfoy is just silly.”

“Sounds like a Reggae singer to me,” Hermione murmured, a smile twitching her lips.

Harry met her twinkling eyes and burst out laughing.

“What!” Ron demanded.

“Nothing,” Hermione chirped.

“They’re doing their Raised-by-Muggles thing again,” Draco growled. Turning a sour glare on Harry, he added, “Maybe his last name won’t _be_ Malfoy.”

“You want to make him a Potter?” Ron offered.

“Bob Potter?” Harry shook his head in amused disgust. “That’s even worse!”

“Maybe I don’t want your sodding name anymore than I do my own!” Draco shouted, his patience at an end and the day’s stresses finally pushing him over the edge into a full-blown tantrum. “Maybe I’ll change my name and bugger off where you’ll never find me! Then you can call the brat anything you like, play daddy to your heart’s content, and _leave me the fuck out of it!_ ”

“Oi, mate, take it easy,” Ron cautioned.

Draco turned his seething glare on the hapless Ron ready to cut loose with another torrent of words, but Harry was suddenly on his feet and pulling Draco up into his arms. Just how he’d transferred the child to Hermione’s hands so quickly, Draco didn’t see and honestly didn’t care. All that mattered was that Potter was there when he needed him. He wrapped both arms around Draco and pulled him hard against his chest, even as Draco took a gasping, shuddering breath and began to shake.

“Okay, hold on.”

Draco wrapped his own arms around Potter’s waist and buried his face in the curve of the taller man’s neck.

“Shh,” Harry murmured into his rumpled hair. “I’ve got you. Just hold on.”

“I refuse to do this!” Draco hissed, his fists knotting in Harry’s shirt and flailing against his ribs. “Any of it! I won’t. I _won’t!_ ”

“Okay.” Harry tightened his hold, began to sway slightly, and repeated his quiet, calming noises. “Shh-shh.”

Shooting Hermione a look over Draco’s head, he asked, “Can we leave the baby here for the night?”

“Potter!” Draco protested.

“Of course,” Hermione murmured, and Draco could hear the pity in her voice. It made his innards writhe.

In the next instant, before he could lash out at his friends again, Draco felt himself shoved into a too-tight tube. All the air was crushed from his lungs. There was a lurch and they were standing in their own bedroom.

Draco sucked in another breath, his ribcage finally free to move, and tried to break free of Potter’s arms.

“Come on, love. Come to bed.”

“You can’t make me do it! You aren’t my mother, Potter! You can’t turn me up sweet with that voice and that… _fuck!_ ”

Potter had him on the bed now, still holding him close and murmuring softly in his ear, ignoring the way he squirmed and lashed out and railed against cruel fate. Draco hated him for it, even as he melted into him in abject surrender. A wordless surge of magic had them both naked, Draco’s face clean and his hair loose around his shoulders. Draco gasped and choked on his furious tears, so overwhelmed by the storm of emotion in him that he couldn’t decide whether to scream, swear, weep, or ravish Potter where he lay.

Potter took the matter out of his hands. Rolling atop Draco, he bent to capture his mouth in a bruising kiss. Draco answered it eagerly—what else could he do, really?—but the instant his lover backed off to breathe, he snarled,

“Don’t think you can win me over with sex, either, Potter!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Harry kissed away the tears at the corner of his eye, then planted a line of kisses down his throat, pausing to suck a bruise or two into the delicate flesh. “I’m just giving you what you need.”

“I _need_ to hex my parents and that French twat into the next millennium!”

“Tomorrow. After we fuck like crazed weasels and sleep the clock round.”

“You think fucking is going to fix this?”

“I think it’ll sweeten your temper and help you sleep. That’s all I’m hoping for tonight.”

“Oh. Well.” He pondered this, while Potter worked his way down to one nipple and pulled it into his hot, hungry mouth. Against his will, Draco arched up to meet him, groaning when the sensation shot straight to his groin. His cock lifted invitingly. “That might work.”

“I know it will.”

“Just… don’t say ‘weasel’ when you’re talking about fucking.” He caught a double fistful of black hair and pulled Harry’s head back up to his own. “It paints entirely the wrong picture.”

“Got it. No weasels. Fuck like mad hippogriffs, then?”

“That works for me.”

Harry grinned and nipped at his lower lip. “I knew it would. Slut.”

“Shut it and fuck me, you mad hippogriff.”

So he did, and when Draco finally crawled under the covers, he was far too exhausted to think about the tiny creature cuddled in Hermione’s arms or the horrific thing his parents had done to him to get it. All he wanted was sleep. And Potter. And one more kiss to taste on his lips as he drifted off. And as usual, Draco Malfoy got just what he wanted.

 

**_To be continued…_ **


	4. What Shall We Do About Bob?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am soooo sorry about the long wait! I had to finish up my angst-ridden fic while it was fresh in my mind. You'd think I'd have learned the dangers of publishing two fics at once by now, but no, not me. Anyway, here it is at last, the next installment in Harry and Draco's parenting saga.
> 
> This chapter is more angsty than I had intended-maybe some of the residual angst from my other fic bled into it-but the story requires one or two serious discussions, given the subject matter, so I just went with it. And I tried to put some humor in where I could.
> 
> I hope you enjoy it! Please let me know what you think!

****Bob arrived in state at Grimmauld Place the next day. Draco watched it happen in appalled, scowling silence, trailing on the heels of his partner and his friends as they overturned his life, refusing to be drawn into discussions of nurseries, nappies or feeding schedules. In spite of his steadfast resistance, his son was installed in his nursery across the hall from the master bedroom by lunchtime and there was fuck-all that Draco could do about it.

Harry had chosen the room to convert into a nursery, much to Draco’s chagrin. Left to his own devices, he would have stuck the brat up in the highest, smallest, darkest attic the old house had to offer, but Harry insisted that he needed to be within squalling distance of his parents (Parents! That was a laugh, or would be if it weren’t so horrifying). Weasel filled the room with furniture, while Granger decorated it in fluffy yellow ducklings and Potter dusted the ceiling with constellations that glowed in the dark. Piles of nappies, drawers full of Hugo’s hand-me-down clothes, blankets and booties and pacifiers and tiny little brushes for his non-existent hair… It was staggering what they thought one infant needed. And that was just in the nursery!

The kitchen came next, and by the time they’d finished, Draco was on the verge of hysterics. He watched Weasel piling canisters of baby formula into the pantry, listened to Granger explain how to sterilize bottles with magic, and suddenly knew that he had to get out. Away. Far, far away, before he started screaming like a bloody infant, himself.

Lurching to his feet, he tore out of the room and up the stairs to the drawing room. There, the floo beckoned, but he had no idea where to have it take him. His parents were out of the question. His friends would be unsympathetic at best, most of them being Potter’s friends first and likely to take his part in any argument. And every last one of them adored children.

The blithering idiots.

Finally, he threw a handful of powder into the flames and shouted, “The Leaky Cauldron!”

If he couldn’t find a shoulder to spew bile on, he could at least get pissed out of his mind.

The taproom of the Leaky Cauldron was nearly empty at this hour. Tom nodded a greeting as Draco stepped out of the fireplace, then turned back to endlessly polishing glasses, assuming that the new arrival was headed out into Diagon Alley through the yard. When Draco approached the bar instead and eased onto a stool, the old bartender lifted his brows at him.

“What can I get you, Malfoy?”

He slapped a Galleon on the bar. “Firewhiskey. Neat. And leave the bottle.”

Tom grinned as he produced a new bottle of Ogden’s best and ostentatiously broke the seal on the cap. “Drowning your troubles, then?”

“That’ll do for a start.”

Draco waited for him to pour two fingers of amber liquid into the well-polished glass, then downed it in a single swallow. The air rushed out of his lungs. Smoke poured out of his ears. He made an odd wheezing noise that sounded like something was dying in the corner. When he could breathe again, Draco set the glass down with a snap and reached for the bottle.

“Kill yourself, drinking like that,” Tom opined, not one iota of concern for Draco’s welfare in his tone.

“So what if I do? Are you going to weep over my lifeless corpse?” He downed another slug of alcohol and gasped for breath. As the heat in his mouth faded, he reflected that he had likely seared off all of his tastebuds, which was probably an advantage when drinking this swill. He also might well have burned a few holes in his stomach.

This might be an effective way to kill oneself, but it was not a painless one.

Tom chuckled at Draco’s obvious discomfort and resumed his polishing. Two wizards seated at a table by the back door—the only other patrons in the bar—eyed Draco in suspicion over their pints, but Draco ignored them. Everyone in the wizarding world eyed him with suspicion. It was a constant feature of his life and not worth noting unless one of them drew his wand.

He took another drink, wheezed, swore, and pressed a hand to his writhing stomach. He had to swallow hard to keep it all down. His head was already starting to spin, and he slumped forward with his elbows on the bar, letting the booze take him.

Fuck, that felt good! Maybe, with another few drinks in him, he’d be ready to spew his guts up behind the bins in the yard. The thought made him smile woozily and knock back another two fingers.

Tom was clearly watching him, waiting for the opportune moment to start talking again. When he saw the glass slip from Draco’s hand and thunk clumsily onto the bar, he moved back over to join him and cheerfully poured another drink. Shoving the glass into Draco’s fumbling fingers, he shot him a jovial wink and said, “Get that into you, then tell old Tom what’s got you so keen to poison yourself.”

Draco had never heard so long a sentence come out of Tom’s mouth before, much less such a kindly one. He straightened up in surprise, then sagged to one side, only catching himself on the edge of the bar just in time to stay on his stool.

“Congratulate me,” he slurred, “I’m a father.”

“Are you, now?” Tom gave him a considering look, then pressed the filled glass into his hand again. “Well. Bottom’s up, then, eh?”

Draco emptied it without hesitation.

“Really are going to kill yourself, you keep that up,” Tom said equably.

“Why’d you pour it, then?” Draco demanded, his legendary Malfoy poise washed away with his precise diction. He could feel his body melting against the bar, his tongue going numb, and his cheeks flushing with what should have been embarrassment but was probably just the alcohol overheating him.

“Man should go his own way,” Tom stated, “even if he wants to kill himself.”

He poured another drink and pushed it over to Draco, but Draco only toyed with it, silently absorbing what the other man was saying.

“I don’t.” He took a sip of the Firewhiskey and grimaced. “Want to kill myself.”

“Right.” Tom grabbed the bottle and tucked it somewhere under the bar without any change in his expression. “No more for you, then, ducky.”

Draco hiccuped. “Did you just call me _ducky?_ ”

Tom gave him another gap-toothed grin. “Look like a ‘ducky’ to me.”

“I am not a _ducky_ ,” Draco said, loftily, trying very hard to sit up straight, “I’m a _Malfoy_.”

“Wouldn’t shout that too loudly, if I were you.” Tom nodded significantly toward the back of the room and the two wizards seated there.

Draco hiccuped again and waved a dismissive hand in their direction. “They know who I am. _Everyone_ knows who I am. _Everyone_ wants to h-* _hic_ * hex me into oblivion. And they would, if they weren’t afraid of * _hic*_ Potter.”

“Potter isn’t here and you’re too pissed to defend yourself. Go home, before you get hurt.”

“Don’t want to,” Draco groused, sagging still lower against the bar. “Not my home… _his_ home, now… even got a room with _d-duckies_ …”

“Merlin’s balls. Go _home,_ Malfoy.”

A shadow suddenly loomed over Draco, and a deep voice said, “This filthy, little wanker giving you trouble, Tom?”

Draco twisted around to look up at the figure crowding close to his left shoulder but he couldn’t bring it into focus. “Who the fuck’re you?”

“A decent, clean-living wizard who doesn’t like Death Eaters and shirt-lifters stinking up his favorite pub. That’s who.”

“Oh.” Draco turned away dismissively. “One of those.”

“Malfoy…” Tom warned, even as the man gave Draco a shove, knocking him sideways and into another figure to his right.

The second one threw him off, then gave him a clout in the back of the head that spilled him onto the bar. His chin cracked on wood. His teeth snapped closed on his tongue.

“Ouch. Fuck,” Draco said, the word bubbling slightly as blood filled his mouth.

“That’s enough, boys,” Tom protested. “He’s not doing any harm.”

“He’s bleeding on the bar. Disgusting. Little twat shouldn’t be out in public without a keeper. Or a leash.”

Draco spat blood onto the bar, shooting his tormentor a scornful look from beneath his lashes. He reached for his glass of Firewhiskey, only to have his wrist clamped down by a meaty hand.

“I said that’s enough!” Tom insisted.

But the two men were not listening. The one holding Draco’s arm hauled him off of his stool. He stumbled, his feet flatly refusing to cooperate and stay under him, only to fall into the second man’s arms. That earned him a slap to the face that spilled him onto the floor amongst the empty tables and benches. A booted foot came down on his neck, pinning him down and half-crushing his windpipe.

“Hold still, you cunt.”

Draco wasn’t afraid. He’d been through far worse than a beating at the hands of two pot-valiant wizards, and he knew they didn’t dare do more than rough him up a bit. In fact, he rather relished the idea of a good turn-up, if he could only clear the Firewhiskey fumes from his head long enough to throw a punch. Or a curse. Then again, he’d left Grimmauld Place without his wand, which wasn’t the smartest thing he’d done all week, so maybe a brawl with two strangers of unknown power wasn’t such a brilliant idea after all.

Or maybe it was. Maybe he just wanted someone to hit him. Hard and repeatedly. Maybe he wanted Harry to have to come fetch him from St. Mungo’s and see the livid bruises on his face. Maybe…

Maybe he was a stupid, selfish twat and this was a bloody ridiculous way to greet the arrival of his First Born.

“Gerroff!” he growled, flopping like a beached fish in an attempt to throw off his attacker.

The man just shifted his weight, grinding his booted heel painfully into Draco’s vertebrae and cutting off his air again.

“What’re we gonna do with him?” one of the men asked the other.

His friend thought for a moment, then said, “Fuck if I know. Cut his bollocks off?”

The first one gave this idea due consideration, sucking noisily on his teeth, but quickly found the onion in the ointment. “Potter would geld us for it, or put us in bloody Azkaban.”

“Humm.” They both fell into doubtful silence, while Draco lay sprawled on the floor and Tom lurked behind the bar, tutting unhappily.

“Can I finish my drink, while you’re working it out?” Draco asked, saucily, when it became clear that neither of his attackers had any idea how to extricate themselves from this singularly ludicrous position.

“Shut it, you,” the man standing on him growled. Then, to his friend, he mused, “D’you suppose he’s still got it? The, you know… _Mark?_ ”

“Imbecile,” Draco snapped before his brain caught up with his mouth, “of course I do. It’s not as if they wash off in the shower!”

“I’ve always wanted to see one up close,” the second man said nervously.

The first one shuddered. “Go on, then. Let’s have a look.”

The second man crouched to Draco’s left and pulled his arm out straight. Draco twisted his head to watch as the man shoved his sleeve up to his elbow, baring his pale arm. And there it was for all to see. His crowning act of stupidity. The one mistake he could never erase, live down or apologize for enough. The fucking Dark Mark.

It had faded since Voldemort’s death but it was still painfully clear against his porcelain-white skin. A skull with a snake coiling out of its gaping jaws. Grotesque, even if you didn’t know what it stood for, but of course, everyone in his world knew exactly what it stood for. And they all knew he carried it on his arm, even when they couldn’t see it.

“Cor, blimey,” one of the men breathed almost reverently.

The other made a gagging sound and ground his boot heel into Draco’s spine once more. “Bet you’re sorry you did that to yourself, eh?”

“You have no fucking idea,” Draco sighed.

“Ever tried to get rid of it?”

“I’d have to take the whole arm off.”

“Best idea I’ve heard all day.” The man’s weight shifted, and Draco gathered from the way his friend’s eyes widened that he’d drawn his wand.

“Here! Stop that!” Tom called. He stepped around the bar and came toward the group, a wand in his hand. “What do you think you’re doing?!”

“A public service!” the standing man retorted, while the crouching one pinned Draco’s wrist to the floor, his arm still turned so that the Mark glared up at them all.

“Not in my place, you aren’t!”

“Okay, we’ll take him outside. What d’you think? Behind the bins in the yard? Relax, Malfoy,” he added, when Draco began to twitch and thrash, “we’re doing you a favor.”

Whether or not the two wizards would have carried out their threat and lopped off Draco’s arm became moot at that point, when Harry Potter stepped out of the fireplace. He paused to brush the soot from his clothes, his eyes traveling around the room and freezing them all in place, as if he were a basilisk instead of the Hero of the Wizarding World. The gleam in his eyes told Draco that he understood exactly what was happening.

As he loped over to where Draco lay, the two strange wizards abruptly came to life and scrambled back, putting as much distance as they dared between themselves and the Chosen One. Draco pushed himself up to his knees, then accepted the hand that Harry extended to him. Harry hoisted him to his feet and gathered his smaller body into his side when he swayed dizzily.

“All right?” he asked in that gentle voice that Draco simultaneously loathed and loved.

Draco gulped and nodded, blinking owlishly to bring his eyes and his brain into focus. It didn’t work.

“How much did you have to drink?”

“Dunno.”

“Half a bottle of Firewhiskey,” Tom interjected, “in about five minutes.”

“That might be taking the celebration a bit far, don’t you think?” Harry pointed out, still in that maddening tone.

“I wasn’t celebrating,” Draco retorted. “I was trying to drown myself.”

“The river is faster.”

“Cold-hearted bloody bastard,” he muttered sourly.

“Come on home, love.” Draco shuddered, but Harry only pulled him closer. Then, with a taunting glance cut at the two glowering wizards, he lifted Draco’s chin and kissed him full on the mouth. When he pulled back, he was frowning. “Why do you taste like blood?”

“Accident,” Draco muttered.

“It was those two,” Tom said, waving at the strangers, “but you got here before it went too far.”

“Well. This is everyone’s lucky day, then, isn’t it?” Harry purred, his eyes locked to the two men, his smile warning of dire consequences if either one of them made a move toward his lover.

“They only wanted to cut off my Dark Mark,” Draco said glumly, “something I’ve thought of doing more than once.”

“We’ll discuss it at home.” Harry shot another hard glance at the two wizards, as he guided the limp, staggering Draco over to the floo. Then he smiled at the old bartender. “See you later, Tom. Give those two another round on me, and see if you can impress upon them how lucky they are that you’re not sponging their brains off the walls.”

He didn’t wait to see Tom’s nod of agreement, just tossed a handful of powder into the flames and hauled Draco into them with him. Draco clung to him as they spun and spun. He was still angry—about Bob, about the duckies, about everything—but in his drunken state he had no defense against Harry Bloody Potter in Auror Mode. He could only hold on for dear life and thank all the gods that Harry loved _him—_ Draco Malfoy, wearer of the Dark Mark, pureblood bully and snob, the most pathetic excuse for a parent in the known universe—enough to threaten mayhem on his behalf.

He was dizzy, sick to his stomach, and horny as hell when they stumbled out of the fireplace in their own drawing room. But instead of taking him upstairs and buggering him senseless, as Draco made abundantly clear he wanted, Potter bustled him down to the kitchen, where he began plying Draco with starchy foods and strong coffee.

Even that was arousing. Draco found himself purring with satisfaction when Potter set a plate of fried potatoes in front of him, then ran a hand over his hair and murmured sweetly in his ear, “Eat up, love. You’ll feel better.”

“I feel brilliant,” he retorted, lifting a hand to pull Potter into an open-mouthed kiss.

Potter hummed and smiled and petted his hair but did not let him get beyond that kiss. With a knowing look that simultaneously irritated and enflamed Draco, he sat down in his own chair and sipped a cup of coffee, watching Draco over its rim. Draco took a bite of potatoes, then licked the fork clean in deliberate provocation, relishing the heat in Harry’s eyes as they followed the movement of his tongue.

And for a few minutes, Draco forgot to be angry or afraid. Harry still loved him, still wanted him, still took the time to care for him, even with another helpless creature in the house that needed him more than Draco ever would. He let himself believe it, right up until the moment that a piercing whistle filled the room and Harry leapt to his feet.

“That’s the baby!” he cried, breathless with delight, and tore out of the kitchen, leaving Draco alone and outraged.

A moment later, the monitoring charm shut off, telling Draco that Harry was in the nursery with Bob. Draco slammed down his fork and threw himself back in his chair. His gaze tracked over to the hearth, where the salamander was curled happily in the coals, blinking orange-red eyes at him.

“That’s us done for,” Draco told him bitterly. The salamander gave a gentle hiss, like a tea kettle about to boil, and let his huge eyes droop closed. “Just you wait ’til he forgets to stoke up your fire. Then you’ll be hissing a different tune, you wretched newt!”

With that, Draco slammed his chair back, leapt to his feet (luckily he’d regained the use of his legs by this point) and strode out of the room. He met Harry on the stairs. The other man was cradling a flannel-wrapped bundle in his arms, cooing and babbling to it, and didn’t see Draco until they nearly collided. Draco pulled back, then flattened himself against the wall to let Potter pass, all without lifting his eyes to his partner’s face.

He could hear the smile in Harry’s voice, even if he wouldn’t let himself see it. “I’m just going to give him a bottle. Want to help me?”

“I’d rather tear my own eyes out,” Draco snapped.

Harry halted on the same stair as Draco, trapping him with his presence, demanding his attention, but Draco was having none of it. He edged up another stair, then another, freeing himself from the larger man.

“It won’t take long,” Harry pleaded, “then we can…”

“You can fuck yourself, Potter.” He started up again, his back to his gobsmacked lover. “You certainly won’t be fucking me.”

Draco reached the master bedroom and slammed the door behind him, putting a locking spell on it for good measure. Then he flung himself down on the bed and lay staring blindly up at the canopy above him. He didn’t move.

Some time later, he heard the doorknob rattle.

“Draco?”

He didn’t answer.

“Draco, I won’t break your spell (and he could, Draco knew, without half trying, which was too fucking unfair for words) but you can’t stay in there all day. Just come out, and we’ll talk!”

Draco did not come out. He did not get off the bed, except to have a slash, did not light the candles when the room grew dark or stoke the fire when it grew cold. He just lay there, eyes fixed on the green canopy over his head, waiting for his world to right itself. It wouldn’t, he knew, but he had no idea what else to do. So he lay there and waited.

Late in the evening, a huge, silver stag leapt through the wall and landed on the rug before the dying fire. It pawed at the rug, ducked its head at Draco, and said in Harry’s voice, “Come out, love. It’s supper time.”

Draco’s answer was to roll onto his side and close his eyes.

Harry didn’t come near him again or send another Patronus. Eventually, Draco fell asleep, curled up at the foot of the bed. He had strange, uncomfortable dreams and awoke in the wee hours to a dark, silent, sleeping house.

Pausing to pull off his shoes so he wouldn’t make a sound, he finally unlocked the door and went in search of Harry. He found him in the nursery. The berk had fallen asleep in a rocking chair, with the baby curled against his chest. Draco took one look at the two of them sleeping so peacefully together, turned on his heel, and stalked out.

Returning to the bedroom, he spelled the door locked once more, then he stripped off and climbed into the bed. He closed his eyes and stubbornly pretended that he was sleeping, while tears slipped from under his lashes and dampened his pillow. Harry had made his choice, that much was clear, and Draco had no choice but to accept it.

 

*** *** ***

 

When Draco stepped into the kitchen the next morning—meticulously groomed in an attempt to hide the physical traces of overindulgence and a sleepless night—he found Harry there before him. He was clattering about with pots and pans and kettles, whistling between his teeth. A bassinet stood at one end of the table, silent and ominous, reminding Draco of his place in this household.

A place he had no intention of occupying for long, thank you very fucking much.

Potter paused in his cooking frenzy to glance over his shoulder at Draco. A wide, warm smile split his face, and Draco indulged in a brief, frantic hope that he would come to him, embrace him, kiss him and tell him that it was all a ridiculous misunderstanding.

He didn’t. He merely melted Draco with that smile and said, “Morning, love. I’ve got a full English ready. What’ll you have?”

“Coffee,” Draco said coldly, perching himself stiffly in the chair farthest from that bassinet.

“You haven’t had anything but Firewhiskey since breakfast yesterday. You need food.” Ignoring the glare Draco gave him, Harry slapped a loaded plate in front of him, then added a few slices of buttered toast to the pile. “Get that into you, then we’ll talk.”

“We have nothing to talk about.” Draco looked down at his plate, avoiding Harry’s eyes. “You’ve made your position plain, as have I.”

“Git. Eat your breakfast.” He set marmalade, coffee and a cream jug on the table, then sat down across from Draco with his own plate.

“I’ll be out of here as soon as I arrange a place to go,” Draco said, still in his coldest, most detached tone, knowing that Harry hated it and would react to it with anger.

He wanted anger. He wanted shouting and threats and furious accusations. He wanted _anything_ besides this bright happiness that heralded his own downfall.

“You’ll do no such thing.” Harry didn’t sound angry, just certain, which brought Draco’s own fury up in a tide.

Lifting hard, ice-filled eyes to Potter’s face, he snapped, “As I said, you’ve made your position plain. This is your house. You have the right to keep a dozen puling infants in it, if you like. But _I_ have the right to leave it.”

“I’m not disputing that. I’m just trying to have an adult conversation.”

Draco’s mouth twisted into a disdainful sneer. “Pardon me if I don’t live up to your standards of maturity.”

“For Fuck’s sake!” Harry exploded, finally letting his temper off its lead. “Would you give the Drama Queen routine a rest for one fucking minute?!”

Draco flinched as if slapped and clamped his lips together, tears burning his eyes as genuine hurt flooded him.

Harry never spoke to him like that! Other people did all the time—called him a ponce and a diva and a twat—but not Harry. Harry knew that his tantrums were a defense, a way to vent emotions he struggled to acknowledge or express. He teased Draco sometimes, but never derided him or made him feel less than a man, less than an equal, for his outbursts and affectations. Until now. Until his parents and some Veela rapist twat turned his world to slag and turned his lover—the one constant in his miserable excuse for a life—against him.

Unable even to fight back in the face of Harry’s betrayal, Draco dropped his head and let the hot tears slip from between his lashes.

For a long minute, Harry said nothing. He just sat there, his eyes boring into the top of Draco’s head. Then he reached across the table to rest his hand over both of Draco’s, holding them with warm, callused fingers.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

Draco didn’t answer, but he didn’t pull away either. He couldn’t, though he knew his self-respect demanded that he should.

“I’m not angry with you,” Harry went on softly. “I know this is a ridiculous, impossible, thoroughly fucked-up situation and you’re dealing with it in the only way you know.”

“Stop being so bloody understanding,” Draco growled, still grasping for his resentment even as it slipped through his fingers, “and stop trying to turn me up sweet. I’m as angry with you as I am with _them._ ”

“I know you are, but I’m not sure why.”

Draco lifted his head, not caring that his eyes were glazed and his cheeks wet with tears. He was past caring what weakness Harry saw in him. “Because you brought _that_ ,” he jerked his chin toward the bassinet, “into our home, just assuming that I’d smile and nod and accept it! That I’d give up without a fight!”

“I didn’t assume any such thing,” Harry said quietly.

“And yet, there he is!”

“He has nowhere else to go.”

“Brilliant! Perfect! Now we’re a Foundling home on top of everything else!”

“He’s not a foundling, Draco, he’s your son.”

“ _I know what he is!_ ”

“Good.” Harry let that sit for a moment, green eyes fixed unwaveringly on Draco’s face, then he said in that maddeningly calm Auror voice of his, “Now that we’re clear on that, we can move on.”

“You mean, you can bully me into doing this your way.”

“No. I mean, we can come up with a solution together. One that both of us can live with.”

Draco summoned his sneer again, but it lacked its usual cutting edge. “Why bother? You’ve already found your solution, all wrapped up nicely in fluffy ducklings and constellations on the ceiling. I wish you joy of it.”

“You’re doing it again—lashing out at me instead of listening. Please, Draco, just _listen_. I’m not trying to force your hand…”

Draco slumped back in his chair, crossed his arms defiantly, and ducked his head to glare sullenly at Harry from beneath his damp lashes. “No? What do you call that nursery and the formula and the rest of it?”

“Necessities. Somebody has to care for him, and for now, that’s us. The day he leaves this house— _if_ he leaves this house—I will vanish it all in a heartbeat.”

“You want him.”

A long pause met his grumbled words. Draco let his lashes droop, unable to see Harry’s face and his own doom written there. Then Harry spoke again, his voice so soft that it barely carried as far as Draco.

“Not if it costs me you.”

Draco’s head came up sharply. “What are you saying?”

“You’re my family, Draco. The only one I need. I won’t destroy my family in the hope of finding another, better one, when I know that no one can be better for me than you.”

“S-so if I said… if I wanted…” Draco stuttered, scrambling for words while his thoughts spiraled out of control and his heart lurched painfully in his chest. Finally, he sucked in a long, steadying breath and tried again. “What if I can’t be a father?”

“I won’t try to make you.” He stretched his hands across the table and waited for Draco to sit forward, to take them, to return the pressure of his fingers. “I love that little boy. How could I not, when he’s a tiny you? But he’s not my son and it’s not up to me what happens to him. I’ll only say this.”

He tightened his grip on Draco’s hands and filled his voice with fierce determination. “I won’t abandon him again. He has to go where he’s safe and loved and stands a chance of being happy. I insist on that much. The rest is up to you.”

Draco swallowed the lump in his throat and whispered, “That’s not what you said before, when I suggested giving him to my parents.”

“I was wrong. I didn’t understand just what they did to you, or how hard it would be for you to accept a child born that way. I thought my love for him was enough.”

“So, if I say I want them to have the child…?”

“Then I’ll hand him over to them.” A pause, then, “Is that what you want?”

Draco freed one hand to press his fingertips to his eyelids, trying to hold back frustration, tears and a pounding headache. He took one deep breath, then another, then muttered behind the screen of his lifted hand, “It’s not right.”

Harry said nothing, though Draco could feel his emotions beating at him like the heat of an open flame.

“They can’t be trusted to care for dust bunnies, much less a child.” Another moment of heavy silence, then, “I hate them.”

“You don’t, you know,” Harry murmured.

“I hate what they did to me.”

“So do I.”

“They deserve to rot in Azkaban.”

“I can arrange that, if it’s really what you want.”

“No.” He groaned and let his head fall onto the table, burrowing his face into the crook of his elbow. “I don’t know!”

“Draco. Love.” He lifted his head reluctantly to find Harry leaning anxiously across the table toward him. “You don’t have to worry about them, now, but we have to make some kind of decision about the baby.”

“Bob.”

“Bob. If you don’t want him with your parents, what are our options? We could try to find a family to adopt him—Muggles would be farther from Lucius and so safer, but I can’t imagine a child that’s half you and half French Veela living comfortably among Muggles…”

“Merlin, no!”

“Any wizarding family is going to know who he is. That will make it difficult to find one willing to take him. No one wants to tangle with the Malfoys in a custody battle.”

“Or adopt the latest Death Eater’s spawn,” Draco added harshly. “Face it, Potter. There’s no place my father can’t find him and only one place where he’ll be safe.”

Harry just looked at him, head cocked to the side and an expectant look on his face.

“You sneaky, sodding _Slytherin!_ ” Draco railed, now tugging on his carefully-groomed hair with both hands. “You set me up!”

“Slytherin?” Harry’s eyes widened in mock surprise. “Me?”

“ _You!_ You, you… _Gah!_ I’ll _fucking kill you for this!_ ”

“For what?”

“You know damned well for what! You backed me into a corner!” He dropped his head to rest on the table again, locking his arms over it to shield himself from Harry’s gaze and snarling, “You gave me all that rot about supporting me no matter what, knowing the whole time that I had _no_. _Fucking_. _Choice!_ ”

Harry let his agonized shout ring into silence, then he said, quietly, “There’s still his mother.”

Draco fell still at that, letting the room go so quiet that he could hear the pounding of his own heart. When he finally spoke again, his voice was small, defeated, weary, with no fight left in it. “She abandoned him on a doorstep.”

Harry touched his hand, stroked it lightly, then abruptly rose to his feet and rounded the table. Suddenly, Draco was in his arms, lying against his chest, hiding his face in the curve of his neck, and shaking. A hand petted his hair, making him breathe out a low sob and burrow deeper into that lovely, warm, sheltering neck.

“It’s all right, Draco. You can do it.”

“I’m not a father, Harry. I’m a walking disaster. I’ll do a worse job than my parents ever could.”

“Not with me to help. We’re a family, yeah? We’ll do it together.”

“Two bumbling, brainless, useless clots instead of one? How can we fail?”

“That’s the spirit,” Harry chuckled.

 

**_To be continued…_ **


	5. A Name of His Own

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The plot progresses! And Bob gets a name. :)
> 
> I hope you enjoy it!

****Parenthood was everything Draco had imagined and more. So much more. More noise, more odors, more bodily fluids, more furious demands for his attention than he had ever dreamed possible from one, tiny creature. Bob was no more than a grub with hair. It seemed inconceivable that he could fill an entire house with his howls and smells and excretions, but somehow, he managed it.

The Laws of Physics did not apply to infants, it seemed. Nor did logic, reason, sanity, order. And yet, people loved them. Why? What was it about that pale, pink, squirming, mindlessly-selfish thing that turned a rational man like Harry Potter into cooing, gibbering mush?

It boggled the mind.

But still, Draco tried. He was neither stupid nor (contrary to popular opinion) weak and he would not be defeated by one squalling infant. He would not.

The day Harry returned to work, leaving Bob in Draco’s sole care for the first time, he suggested that Draco take him over to the Burrow and let Molly Weasley fuss over him, but Draco treated this suggestion with magnificent disdain. He did not need the help of Molly Weasley or anyone else. He was not afraid of his own son!

That resolve lasted ’til lunchtime, when he came into the kitchen to find that he hadbeen so taken up with soothing Bob’s various upsets that he had not even finished his own breakfast. It still sat on the table, cold and gelatinous, gathering flies. He promptly sent Harry a Howler, demanding that he come home _at once._

The next day went a bit better. He let Harry work undisturbed and only floo-called Granger three or four times for advice. When Harry finally stepped out of the floo, Draco met him with a howling, red-faced baby that he thrust unceremoniously into his arms. Then he disappeared into the bathroom, shut himself behind a Silencing charm so he didn’t have to hear what was going on in the rest of the house, and soaked in the tub for two blessed hours.

The third day, he took Bob to visit Molly ( _not_ because he needed her help, thank you very much!) and watched in some bemusement as she turned his raging termagant of a son into a peaceful, perfect bundle of sleepy contentment. It was infuriating, but it gave his ears a much needed break.

By the end of the first week, Draco was developing a kind of routine. When Bob began to fuss, he’d try reasoning with him (never very successful, but he couldn’t help himself), then move on to servicing his baser physical needs. Nappy. Bottle. Burping. Pacifier. If none of these did the trick, he would wander the house, cradling the flailing infant in his arms and spewing a constant stream of meaningless words at it. As a last resort, when no effort of Draco’s could quiet the screams, he would turn on the wireless in the parlor, collapse into an armchair, and let Bob cry them both to sleep.

Harry came home one evening to find Draco slumped in the chair in a darkening room, nearly comatose, with Bob twitching and fretting on his chest.

“You have to relax,” he told his grumpy, bleary-eyed lover when he finally revived him. “Bob can feel your tension.”

“How can I relax when the bloody little monster is screaming all day?”

“He screams because you’re making _him_ tense. Try smiling at him once in a while. Tickle his tummy. Play with him.”

“He’s two weeks old, Potter,” Draco scoffed. “What do you suggest we play? Wizard’s Chess?”

Harry rolled his eyes at that and went on, “When he’s crying for no reason, just sit with him. Rock him. Maybe sing to him. The point is to make him feel safe and calm. Trust me, that’s how Mrs. Weasley does it.”

“Molly Weasley is not human. She’s some sort of magical creature that charms babies into instant obedience. _And_ she has no sense of hearing left.”

Harry laughed. “I thought the same thing about Hermione the night we got Bob. I reckon all parents have to lose their hearing to survive.”

Draco met this with a petulant scowl that made Harry laugh again and pull him into a hug. Bob, caught between their bodies, squirmed harder and began to whimper. Harry quickly took him from Draco’s arms and cuddled him, shooting a warm smile at Draco in apology for cutting short their embrace.

“I can see that you need a rest, so I won’t ask you to come with us to St. Mungo’s tomorrow.”

Draco stiffened with sudden, irrational worry. “St. Mungo’s? Why are you taking him to St. Mungo’s? Is there something wrong with him?”

“I doubt it, but we need to be sure, don’t we? Newborns usually get lots of checkups to make sure they’re healthy and growing properly. And we weren’t around for his birth, so we have no idea what kind of care he got.”

Draco scowled ferociously at the thought of Bob coming into the world without healers and a proper mother to welcome him (the French Veela twat who gave birth to him being no sort of mother, in Draco’s estimation). Harry caught his dour expression, read his thoughts effortlessly, and gave him a twinkling smile.

“After St. Mungo’s, I’ll stop by the Ministry and make sure his paperwork is in order. We don’t want any confusion about who he is or where he belongs, in case your parents decide to make trouble.” When Draco continued to scowl, Harry asked, anxiously, “Have you changed your mind? Do you want them to have him?”

“Not bloody likely!” Draco snapped.

“Then what is it?” A new thought occurred to Harry, and he cocked his head curiously, a hopeful light in his eyes. “Are you worried about him? Do you want to come with us and talk to the healers yourself?”

Draco hesitated. He desperately wanted a morning to himself, but he also felt a niggling desire to be there when his son took his first jaunt out into the world. What if something went wrong? What if Bob was ill or the Ministry refused to accept that he was Draco Malfoy’s son? What if his parents turned up? What if…

“No,” he said firmly, shutting down his unruly brain before it could come up with some doomsday scenario to rob him of his time alone, “you do it. I have a week’s worth of dirty nappies to wash.”

“Leave them,” Harry said with a grin and a kiss pressed to his temple. “I’ll take care of them on my day off.”

 

But Draco did not leave them. He was too appalled by the thought of all the stenches and germs growing in the magically-sealed bin to let it sit, so the first thing he did when he had finished his morning tea was to spell it open and begin _scourgifying_ filthy nappies. With a towering pile of them cleaned, sterilized, warmed and neatly folded (yes, they were only napkins meant for a baby’s arse, but Draco still believed in doing things properly), he started on the clothes. He was working his way through a pile of minuscule t-shirts, onesies, bibs and booties, when he felt the wards light up.

Someone was approaching the house—someone who could see it, despite the _Fidelius_ Charm, but who was not recognized as a friend by the wards. Draco broke off from his work to consider this fact, then shrugged and resumed cleaning.

He’d be buggered six ways ’til Sunday if he opened that door and risked finding another misbegotten brat on the stoop!

A booming knock echoed through the house.

Still Draco ignored it, continuing to fold a flannel blanket covered in fluffy yellow ducklings.

Another knock came, then another, as someone plied the heavy snake-head knocker on the front door.

Finally, with a long-suffering sigh, Draco got to his feet and headed down the stairs to the accompaniment of still more demanding knocks. He reached the front door and wrenched it open, just as his mother lifted her hand to grasp the snake’s head again. They both froze, taking each other in, and Draco felt a delicate flush stain his cheeks.

Narcissa was, as always, dressed with understated perfection. Her robes were a celestial blue, cut to accentuate her height and statuesque figure. Her fair hair was swept up in her ‘Morning Caller’ style—studied elegance pretending to be informal—and the hat sitting at a precise angle atop it had a single white feather curled smartly about the brim.

Draco, on the other hand, had rolled out of bed and begun his housework without so much as brushing his hair. He looked a fright and knew it. And while some part of him defiantly hoped that his mother recognized to what straits she had reduced her only son with her machinations, most of him was frankly embarrassed to be caught in Muggle joggers and a formula-stained t-shirt by his own mother.

He pulled himself up into his haughtiest posture, pretending that his snarled hair was a ducal coronet, and demanded, “What are you doing here?”

“Paying a call on my son,” Narcissa answered breezily. “May I come in?”

Without knowing exactly why he did it (all right, he was a coward who never could stand up to his mother and he bloody well knew it), Draco swung the door wide and stepped aside. Narcissa swept past him, pausing to feather a kiss to his cheek before continuing into the entryway. Draco shut the door with an unnecessary amount of force, then he crossed his arms over his chest and fixed her with a baleful eye.

“Are you going to offer me a cup of tea?” she asked in sugared tones.

Draco merely grunted and stomped off down the hall toward the kitchen. It was still littered with the remains of breakfast for himself, Harry and Bob—formula canisters on the counter, bottles in the sink, dishes stacked higgledy-piggledy on any surface not littered with baby paraphernalia—but the kettle sat on the hob, ready for the essential task of making tea. Draco lit the burner with a stab of his wand, transferred the kettle onto the flame, then gave his wand another sweep to start things sorting themselves.

Narcissa watched the formula fly into a cupboard that shut itself as she sat primly in a kitchen chair. “I’ll never understand why you don’t employ a house-elf,” she commented.

“Because we don’t need one,” Draco retorted sourly.

“You’re both wealthy men from ancient wizarding families. I’m sure you could find an elf willing to take charge of your household.”

“Mother…” he said warningly.

“I seem to remember an elf that lived here when I was a child… Kreacher, wasn’t it?”

“You know perfectly well it was.”

“He was quite devoted to Aunt Walburga and would doubtless jump at the chance to care for this lovely, old house again, if he’s still alive. He must be ancient by now.”

“Yes, Kreacher is still alive, and yes, he is beyond ancient, but we _don’t want him here_. He works in the kitchens at Hogwarts.”

“Hm,” she murmured disapprovingly.

Draco set cups and spoons on the hastily- _scourgified_ table, then he lofted the teapot over to join them.

“One properly drinks tea in the parlor,” Narcissa pointed out gently.

“Not in this house,” Draco retorted, “and not when one hasn’t cleaned the parlor. Would you like a cup of tea? Or would you prefer to criticize my manners?”

“What I’d really like is to see my grandson.”

Draco froze, studying her through narrowed eyes, then demanded, “How do you know it’s a boy?”

Narcissa smiled patiently at him, a look that always made him grind his teeth, and asked, “May I see him?”

“No.”

Her eyes widened for a moment, and her mouth dropped open in outrage. Draco turned away to fetch the whistling kettle. When he turned back, she had composed herself again and pasted her smile in place.

“Do you honestly intend to keep him from us?” she asked, an archness in her voice that was even more irritating than the smile.

“You can’t see him because he isn’t here,” Draco said coldly, as he poured boiling water into the teapot.

Her poise slipped and her voice sharpened. “What have you done, Draco? Where is he?”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but he’s with Harry.”

“Ah.” She visibly relaxed. “I see. When do you expect them back?”

“I don’t know,” Draco sat down across the table from her and fixed her with a challenging glare, “and it hardly matters. My son is none of your concern, Mother. You’re not welcome in his life, _or_ in mine.”

“Now, my dear, I know you enjoy throwing an occasional tantrum, but you’re really too old for that kind of foolishness. Or is this something your Harry encourages because it makes him feel like the man of the family?”

Draco felt his entire body stiffen and the blood drain from his face, leaving it blank, white and furious.

How dare she? After what she had done, to condescend to Draco, belittle Harry and make light of their family? _How fucking dare she?!_

After a moment of stunned silence, he pried his clenched jaw open just far enough to snarl, “Get out of my house!”

Impossibly, infuriatingly, Narcissa just smiled, shook her head, and patted his arm. “That’s quite enough, Draco. You’ve had your fun, made your point, but it’s time to talk seriously about your child’s future.”

“My child’s future?” Draco repeated in disbelief. “ _My child’s future?_ As far as I’m concerned, I’m no longer a Malfoy, which makes my child’s future _none of your fucking business!_ ”

His words finally wiped the smile from her face, and Draco felt a small spurt of satisfaction. He knew it was childish, but he always relished the opportunity to ruffle his mother’s perfect composure, no matter how little it accomplished in the long run.

She stared levelly at him, face impassive and eyes cold. Then she said, with none of the caressing sweetness in her voice that she usually employed, “You and that boy are all that remains of two ancient, noble families. You are the heirs to magical legacies that have passed down through countless generations, only growing more powerful with every wizard that possesses them. Your father explained this to you on your seventeenth birthday, when he performed the ritual that bound the Malfoy Magical Inheritance to you and your bloodline…”

“That!” Draco scoffed, cutting off her solemn pronouncement. “That was for Voldemort’s benefit. To prevent him from stripping the family vaults of money and magical artifacts.”

“It had that effect, yes. By formally investing you as the heir, your father made it impossible for anyone else to assume control of the family’s magic, even the Dark Lord. But it was not _merely_ for that end. The ritual he performed is a solemn and sacred rite, used by wizarding families back to the time of Ptolemy Soter to ensure that their heirs had access to important magic in times of need, and to protect that magic from theft or abuse from the outside.”

“Yes, I know all this, Mother. I also know that after the war the Ministry confiscated and destroyed everything we owned that had a trace of magic in it, and that Father’s much vaunted Magical Inheritance really consists of some manky, old books on Dark Magic and a dangerous habit of siding with megalomaniacal lunatics!”

“You speak of things you do not understand.”

“And whose fault is it that I don’t understand them? Who handed an inheritance to me without once explaining what it entailed or giving me the opportunity to decide if I even _wanted_ it?”

“No one refuses such an inheritance.”

“Well, then, consider me the first.”

“You cannot. Aside from the fact that you’re bound by a magical contract, it would be unthinkable. The family line would be broken, the magic uncoupled from the Malfoy name and blood, the power diffused… lost… Draco, you must not speak of such things, even in jest.”

“Do I look like I’m jesting?” he answered, fixing her with his hardest, most unflinching gaze.

She just stared at him, grey eyes locked to blue, measuring the depths of his determination. Then she said coolly, “It is pointless to argue over something that cannot happen. You have already inherited the Black Family legacy and you will inherit the Malfoy legacy, as well, when your father dies. You cannot refuse it.”

Draco felt a crawling sensation up his spine at the thought of possessing the magic of an entire family that he knew nothing about (except that it was dark and filthy and hateful and he wanted none of it) but he refused to break eye contact with his mother or admit to his fear. He couldn’t afford to expose the smallest chink in his armor. If she sensed weakness, she would pounce and tear his throat out.

“Maybe I can’t,” he said curtly, “but my son can. There’s no magical contract binding him, and I intend to keep it that way.”

“With or without a formal contract, he still inherits.”

“Not if I disinherit him.”

Those words fell with a resounding _thunk_ on the table between them. Narcissa’s back stiffened and her eyes widened. She opened her mouth to speak, shut it, swallowed, then tried again.

“You wouldn’t do that. Not to your son. Not to _us!_ ”

“To _you!_ ” Draco almost howled, bounding to his feet and beginning to pace madly about the kitchen. “What about to _me?!_ What about what _you_ did to _me?!_ Bloody Fucking Hell, Mother! Do you honestly believe that I owe you and Father _anything_ , after you let that Veela…?”

He abruptly broke off, the word ‘rape’ poised on the tip of his tongue but refusing to move past his teeth. He was hurt, furious, appalled that she would dare to play on his affections and loyalties after the unconscionable thing she had done to him. But at the same time, he couldn’t look at his own mother and say that word. That hideous, unforgivable word. So he turned away and continued to pace.

“She gave you an inestimable gift, Draco. I thought you would have realized that, by now.”

Draco halted and turned to fix horrified, tear-bright eyes on her. “Get out,” he choked. “I mean it. Get out of my house…”

“It _is_ your house, you know, even if Sirius gave it to Harry Potter. It’s yours because the magic in it is yours, inherited from your cousin Regulus Black at your birth.”

“ _Get out!_ And _don’t come back!_ ”

“Draco, my dear…”

He drew his wand and pointed it at her, trying desperately to hide the tremor in his hand. “This is my home—because I share it with Harry, not because of some fucking inheritance that I knew nothing about!—and I don’t want you here. I don’t ever want to see you again. I’m going to protect my son from you, from Father, from everything to do with the Malfoy and Black families, whatever it takes.”

Narcissa was on her feet, eyeing his wand with a mixture of wariness and disdain. “You dare to threaten your own mother?”

“I’m only just getting started.”

“You will regret this.”

“Go. _Now_.”

She gave him one more quelling glare, then turned on her heel and swept out of the room. Draco stayed where he was, unmoving, wand still pointed at the empty doorway, until he felt his mother pass through the outer wards. Then, as if he were a puppet and someone had cut his strings, he dropped into the nearest chair. His wand clattered to the table as he crossed his arms on it and crumpled forward to bury his face in them.

His shoulders began to shake.

 

* * *

 

When Harry flooed into the parlor midway through the afternoon, carrying Bob in his arms and a bag bedecked with ducklings over his shoulder, he was met by a frantic, furious partner who was circling the room like a starving vulture.Draco pounced on him, hauled him out of the fireplace, and began hurling questions at him before he’d caught his balance.

“Where have you been? Is he all right? Why is he crying?” He made a move to take Bob, demanding, “Give him to me! Bloody hell, Potter, what took you so long?!”

“I got pulled into a meeting…” Harry started, but Draco didn’t let him finish.

“What did the healers say? Is he sick?” He snatched the fretful baby from Harry’s arms, and Bob promptly began to wail in earnest. “He’s all red and sweaty! Why is he making that dreadful noise?!”

“Relax. He’s fine. He just needs a bottle and a nap.”

“I can’t believe you had him at the Ministry all this time! He’s a _newborn_ , Potter! What if he caught some hideous disease from one of your Auror friends? Don’t you even _think_ about these things?! And while we’re on the subject of _thinking_ , when was the last time you thought about the state of our wards? What good are they when they let just anyone stroll up to our front door?”

“Draco. Hey.” Harry caught his arm, stopped him from whirling away to resume pacing, then slipped his free hand behind Draco’s neck and pulled him close. “What’s wrong?”

Draco hesitated, pressed his lips together in a scowl, and said, “My mother was here.”

“Ah. That would explain why you’re tearing around like your hair is on fire. What did she want?”

“To see Bob. And to talk about his future.”

“That didn’t go well, I take it.”

Draco’s face hardened. “I don’t want her or my father in this house again. We can’t use the _Fidelius_ charm, since they already know it’s here, but we can strengthen the wards to keep them out. And I’m going to find a way to cut Bob out of their Magical Inheritance.”

He cradled the baby’s white-blond head against his shoulder, for once not hearing his insistent cries as a commentary on his parenting skills. He was just a baby in distress—Draco’s baby—and he needed his father’s protection. It was the closest thing to a paternal instinct that Draco had ever felt, and it made his throat swell with sudden tears.

“It’s too late for me.” He swallowed painfully and rasped out, “My father saw to that. But it’s not too late to save my son.”

“Let’s get him down to the kitchen and feed him,” Harry suggested softly, “then you can tell me about this inheritance that’s got you in such a twist.”

Draco just nodded and allowed Harry to guide him out of the room with a hand on his back. In his arms, Draco’s son wailed miserably and burrowed his little face into his shoulder. Draco didn’t quite kiss his head—that would be undignified—but he did rest his lips against the silver-gilt down that covered his scalp and inhale his singular baby-scent, silently repeating his promise.

_I’ll find a way. It’s not too late for you._

 

*** *** ***

 

“So, I’ve been doing a bit of reading…”

“A _bit_ of reading?” Draco protested.

Granger paused, an enormous book in her hands, to shoot him a quelling glare. Then she dropped it on the table with a resounding thud and pulled an inkwell out of her ever-expanding bag. The large kitchen table at Grimmauld Place was already piled so high with books, loose manuscripts and Granger’s copious notes that Draco had to crane his neck to catch a glimpse of Weasley’s ginger mop at the far end of it.

“You’ve got the entire Library of Alexandria, here!”

“Nonsense,” Granger said severely, “I’ve barely scratched the surface. Magical Inheritance is a very complex subject, and the available documentation is mostly too old to be useful. I’ve had to infer quite a lot.”

“Yes, but we only asked you to look into it yesterday,” Harry protested, eyeing the mass of reference materials in mingled awe and horror.

“Well, I may have started a little before that,” Granger admitted, flushing under Draco’s sardonic look. “When you told us why your parents were so desperate for you to father a child, I started wondering…”

“Of course you did,” Draco snorted.

“Just let her tell it, or we’ll be here all week,” Weasel sighed from his invisible place behind the piled books.

“Right. Sorry.” Draco sat back and crossed his arms, lifting an eyebrow at Granger, inviting her to continue.

Granger huffed and rolled her eyes at him, then she pulled an enormous sheaf of parchment covered with her crabbed writing toward her.

“As I said, it’s very complex and I’m not sure I’ve got all the details sorted yet, but here’s the crux of it. Over the centuries, ancient pureblood families acquire certain magical… resources, let’s call them, that they hand down through the generations.”

“What sort of resources?” Harry cut in.

“Artifacts. Spells. Rituals.” She shrugged. “It varies, depending on the interests and abilities of the people involved.”

“Narcissa claims that Draco already possesses the Black inheritance, that he has since birth. She made it sound like this was some kind of huge, profound, important legacy—the combined magic of an entire family amassed over centuries, getting stronger with every generation. But neither of us can figure out what that actually _means._ ”

“The only specific example my mother could give is that the magic in this house responds to me, even though Harry legally owns it,” Draco added.

“Which is true enough, now that I think about it,” Harry said. “You remember what this house was like when Sirius lived in it? And after he died, when it was just Kreacher? We weren’t safe walking into half the rooms, and it was more than our lives were worth to open a cabinet! But now that Draco lives here, the magical objects are mostly quiet and the house is positively cheerful. He’s the one who finally got Walburga’s portrait off the wall.”

“Hmm.” Granger tapped a quill against her chin. “That’s very interesting. To be honest, I hadn’t thought about what it meant, though I noticed the effect Malfoy had on the house the first time I saw him here.”

“So I inherited control over the magic that lives in this house without ever knowing it,” Draco said, “along with its Dark artifacts and whatever else my dear, departed Black ancestors saw fit to squirrel away. Is it actually useful? Can I do anything with it? And what about the Malfoy inheritance? What does that consist of?”

Granger shrugged. “You tell me.”

“How should _I_ know?”

“It’s your family, Malfoy. You’re the one who’s been groomed to step into your father’s shoes and assume control of the family legacy—financial, social and magical—since you were a zygote. Hasn’t your father ever told you what that entails?”

“Not specifically. Just in sweeping, grandiose terms, mostly relating to my duty to produce an heir.” He smirked at her, one brow lifting. “Apparently, it doesn’t matter _what_ we pass down, just so long as we _do_ it.”

“Hang on,” Harry cut in, his brow furrowed in concern, “so you’re set to inherit some magical _something_ —spells or artifacts or whatever—that you don’t know anything about?”

He looked around at them all, brows up under his fringe. “Doesn’t that strike you as dangerous?” When no one spoke, he prodded, “We are talking about the Malfoys, here.”

“He’s got a point,” Ron said. “Merlin only knows what kind of shite they have buried under that pile.”

“Skeletons, mostly,” Draco retorted, drawing a snort of laughter from Weasel and a disapproving look from Granger. “This Magical Inheritance hasn’t killed my father, yet, whatever it is.”

“More’s the pity,” Weasel added.

Granger threw a quill at him. Then she turned to Draco. “If you’re not afraid of the inheritance, then why are you so anxious to avoid passing it on to your son?”

Draco scowled down at the table top, acutely aware of three pairs of eyes on him and feeling a flush of anger stain his cheeks. “Because he doesn’t need it—doesn’t need anything from the Blacks or the Malfoys. Harry and I are his family. We’ll give him what he needs. The rest of it—the Magical Inheritance, the pureblood status, the untainted bloodlines—that’s all shite and he’s well out of it.”

“You could leave things as they are. Leave the possibility of inheriting open to him until he’s old enough to choose for himself. It doesn’t have to harm him, after all. It didn’t harm you…”

“Didn’t it?” Draco shot back. “Look at what my parents did to me because of that fucking inheritance! If I leave the possibility open, as you put it, then Bob becomes the next Malfoy heir, the next target for their obsession and manipulation. And what happens if he’s bent like his father? Or he falls in love with a Muggle? Or he decides he’d rather train dragons and climb mountains than produce children? What will they do to _him_ to get what they want? I won’t have it, Hermione! I _won’t!_ ”

An uncomfortable silence met this outburst, and Draco felt his cheeks heat still more, but he refused to back down. For once in his life, he _knew_ he was right. It was a novel experience for him, and not one that he was particularly comfortable with, but he owed it to his son to stand up for him.

“All right,” Granger finally said in a matter-of-fact way, “then we need to break the line of succession.”

“It can’t be too hard,” Draco said with a shrug. “The Blacks managed it more than once.”

“They removed heirs from the line. They didn’t try to end it entirely. When Walburga disinherited Sirius, Regulus was still alive to take his place. And your Aunt Andromeda was never the direct heir, being female.”

“The inheritance must be able to pass through the female line, or Ferret wouldn’t’ve inherited from Regulus,” Ron pointed out.

Granger nodded. “It can, but only if there are no male heirs in the direct line, and then only to a male descendant. And it means that the Black family legacy now, to all intents and purposes, belongs to the Malfoys.”

Draco pondered this for a minute, then asked, “Is there some way that I could pass it all on to my cousin?”

Granger blinked at him in surprise. “To Teddy Lupin?”

“Yes. Why not? He’s the only other male descendent of the Black family, and who’s to say that the combined legacies belong to the Malfoys any more than to the Blacks? If it’s all one lump of magical whatever, I can give it to whom I like.”

“No, you can’t. And Teddy can’t inherit because he was cut out of the Black family tree before he was ever born. Face it, Malfoy, you have only two options: let your son grow up as a Malfoy, with everything that entails, and leave him the combined Magical Inheritance upon your death; or cut him out of the succession and let the Magical Inheritance die with you.”

“Yeah, but what does that _mean?_ ” Ron asked. “When you say ‘let the inheritance die,’ are you talking about actually losing some powerful magic that only the Malfoy heir can possess? Or are you talking about a box of nasty, dangerous, Dark artifacts that should’ve been destroyed ages ago?”

Draco shot a questioning glance at Granger. “Have you found any references to the kind of power my mother described? Or any indication of what happens when the line of succession is broken?”

She shook her head lugubriously. “I’m sorry, Malfoy, but your mother’s version sounds like a fantasy. From what I’ve been able to learn, Ron’s idea of a box of Dark artifacts is probably much closer to the truth.”

“That’s what I assumed. My father had an entire vault full of magical artifacts, collected by idiot Malfoys over the centuries, that were confiscated after the war and probably destroyed.”

“I’m guessing that was the bulk of your inheritance.”

He smiled grimly. “Then it will be no great tragedy when I take it with me to the grave.”

“Well.” She chewed that over for a minute, then offered, “There is more to being a Malfoy.”

“All of it bad,” Draco stated flatly.

He felt Harry’s hand close around his own, squeezing it tightly, and he shot a grateful glance at his lover. Trust Potter to find a way to agree with him and comfort him at the same time. Bloody brilliant prat.

“We need a way to separate Bob from the Malfoy family, so he can’t possibly inherit anything from them, without separating him from _us_ ,” Harry said firmly. “He’s our son, always, but he’s not Lucius and Narcissa’s grandson. That way, they won’t bother hounding him about his heirs or bloodline because it will have fuck-all to do with them.”

“Have Ferret disinherit him,” Weasel suggested.

“First he has to establish their legal relationship,” Granger temporized. “Since Bob’s mother dropped him on the doorstep, we have no birth records or…”

“Erm,” Harry cut in, clearing his throat awkwardly, “actually we do.”

All eyes swung to him.

“I took him to St. Mungo’s yesterday for a checkup, and I had a Blood Charm done to confirm his paternity.” He shrugged and offered Draco a hopeful smile. “I thought it might be important to have it on record with the Ministry that you’re his father.”

“And am I?” Draco asked, sharply.

Harry’s face softened. “Of course you are. A woman named Fantine Crécy is the mother.”

“French Veela twat,” Draco muttered sourly.

“Then I stopped by the Ministry and got all the documents magically validated, witnessed and filed, so it’s official. Draco is the baby’s father and legal guardian.”

Granger nodded, now chewing on the inside of her cheek as she always did when thinking hard. “That’s good. Excellent. The next step is to research ways to break a Magical Inheritance.”

“I still say that Ferret should disinherit him,” Ron insisted.

“I doubt it’s that simple,” Granger began, but Weasel rode over her.

“Change his name. Make him a Potter. Harry can adopt him legally, if that’s what it takes, then Ferret can burn him out of that family tree upstairs! I’ll bet there’s one like it at the Manor that he can use to cut him out of the Malfoy family, too. Then he’ll be all Potter, with no ties left to the Malfoys or Blacks.”

Draco opened his mouth to protest, then shut it again when he realized what he was about to say.

He’d been fighting the fact of his parenthood since Bob was dumped on his doorstep. Frantically telling himself that he was _not_ a father, didn’t _want_ to be a father, didn’t know _how_ to be a father… Now Weasel was offering him a way to set all of it right, to hand Bob over to the man who actually _wanted_ to be his father and he was… what? Relieved? Grateful? Horrified? He didn’t know.

_He didn’t fucking know!_

Finally, he forced out the only words he could string together sensibly, his voice soft and uncertain, full of a sorrow he didn’t know he was feeling until he heard it. “But he’s my son.”

The others all stared at him in open-mouthed shock, until Harry, a slow smile spreading over his face, said, “He is, and he always will be. I promise you that.”

Draco flushed painfully at the warmth and love in his tone, ducking his head, dropping his eyes. He was, once again, struggling for the right thing to say, when they all heard a sharp _crack_ from somewhere upstairs. The sound of a beak on glass.

Harry jumped to his feet and strode out the door to investigate. A bare minute later, he returned with a large, stiff, parchment envelope in his hands. He held it out to Draco.

“That was a Ministry owl. It brought you this.”

Draco accepted the envelope, read his own name and address written across the front in flowing script, then turned it over to break the heavy wax seal on the flap. Inside was a single sheet of parchment with an elaborate silver W inscribed in the upper left corner and another wax seal at the bottom. Frowning, Draco began to read the script that covered it.

 

_Dear Mr. Malfoy,_

_This is to inform you that a complaint against you has been filed by Lucius and Narcissa Black Malfoy on behalf of their grandson, the child known as Felix Felicis Malfoy…_

 

“ _What the buggering fuck?!!_ ”

“What’s wrong?” Harry demanded, jumping to his feet once more and bending over Draco’s shoulder to read.

“ _I don’t fucking believe this!!_ ”

“Calm down, Draco, and stop swearing,” Granger scolded, while Weasel left his seat to circle the table.

Harry, meanwhile, plucked the letter from Draco’s hand to read it himself.

“Give that to me!” Draco tried to snatch it, but Harry whisked it out of his reach while he continued to read. “Potter! You insufferable git! _Give me my mail!_ ”

“Stop!” Harry slapped his hand away, digested the last few lines, then shoved the letter back into Draco’s hand. “Lucius and Narcissa are charging Draco with endangering the magical wellbeing of his son by denying him his inheritance.”

“ _What?_ ” Ron and Hermione chorused together. Then Ron added, “That’s mental!”

“They want the Wizengamot to award them custody of the baby so they can ensure that he’s raised in the traditions of pureblood wizardry and guaranteed his magical legacy.”

“Bollocks!” Ron turned on his wife and demanded, “They can’t actually do that, can they?”

“Humm,” Granger mused, chewing her cheek once more, “I seem to recall reading something about… let me just check…” Grabbing a book somewhere near the bottom of one pile, she slid it out and flipped it open. In another moment, she was lost in a vast sea of arcane facts.

“There’s a hearing at the Ministry in two days,” Harry said, his voice tight with anger. “In front of the entire Wizengamot, if you can believe that! Like he was some kind of criminal!”

“Wizarding Britain doesn’t have any facility for handling child custody cases,” Hermione remarked, without looking up from her book. “They just don’t happen. Families are bound as much by magic as by love or duty, and the only thing stronger than a magical marriage bond is an Unbreakable Vow.” She finally glanced up, pinning Harry with a bright, angry gaze. “You’ll notice that the Malfoys had to accuse him of a crime—endangering the wellbeing of a child—in order to get the hearing at all.”

“What _I_ want to know,” Draco hissed furiously, “is how they got the idea that my son’s name is _Felix Felicis!_ ”

“Ah. Right.” Harry ran a hand through his hair and looked away, a flush rising in his cheeks. “About that.”

A terrible suspicion gripped Draco, and his eyes narrowed dangerously. “Potter…”

“You remember I had to complete the birth records,” Harry said, blushing still harder and fighting a grin.

“The records for _my son,_ whose name is _Bob._ ”

“Yeah, well.” He shuffled his feet, ducked his head, offered Draco that shamefaced grin again. “I couldn’t do it. I’m sorry, Draco, really, but I couldn’t put it down on paper that your son’s name is Bob. It’s just too ridiculous. No wizard is named Bob, especially not a pureblood quarter-Veela who looks like _you_. So I… er… I had to come up with a name….”

“You named my son after a _POTION?!_ ” Draco fairly howled.

“You love potions,” Harry protested.

“You named my _son_ after a _potion!_ ”

“It’s perfect for him! He needs a name of his own, something that doesn’t belong to anyone else, but that fits such a beautiful boy with so much powerful magic in him! It’s Latin—which it has to be, honestly—but not an old Roman name like Lucius or a constellation.” He broke off, gazing hopefully at Draco, then finished simply, “It means ‘happy’.”

Draco just stared at him, mouth sagging foolishly open, while his friends held their breath and got ready to duck for cover.

“It is a lovely name,” Granger ventured into the charged silence. “Happiness and luck. And you can still call him Bob, if you like. You could even make it official. Change his name to Felix Robert Felicis Malfoy.”

“Potter,” Ron amended.

Still Draco stared, and still he gaped. Harry cocked his head, a pleading look on his face.

“I called him Felix all day, and he loved it. He cooed at me. I swear he even smiled.”

Draco closed his mouth with a snap, gulped, and shook his head in disbelief. “You named my son after a potion.”

 

**_To be continued…_ **


	6. Dirty Laundry of Another Kind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's another one that kept trying to turn angsty. I resisted the urge (mostly) and got a few jokes in.
> 
> Enjoy!

****“They’re here!” Harry called, as he strode into the master bedroom.

It was empty, but the door to the bathroom stood ajar, telling him that Draco was still in there putting the finishing touches to his appearance. Harry gave a snort of amusement and turned to pull his Auror’s robes from the wardrobe. They had plenty of time to get to the Ministry, but Harry could never be entirely sure that Draco would adhere to a schedule, especially when he was feeling recalcitrant.

Sometimes, his lover was petulant and tiresome just for the pleasure of making other people sweat, but today was not a good day for that. In fact, it was the worst possible day for that, and Harry had set himself the unenviable task of ensuring that Draco the Drama Queen made it to the hearing on time.

“Aren’t you ready yet?” he called, as he slipped into his dark red robes and shook out the sleeves. “Hermione wants time to review your strategy before we leave!”

“Almost done,” Draco called from the other room, his voice muffled by whatever he was doing to himself.

Probably something shocking and deliberately provocative, Harry guessed, which was another reason he’d come up here to check on the other man. There was seriously no telling what Draco would do, if left to his own devices.

“And we’ve reviewed our bloody strategy a dozen times, already. Tell her to take a Calming draft and not to get her wand in a knot.”

“No, I’m going to tell _you_ to move your bloomin’ arse! This isn’t a debutante ball, Malfoy! You don’t have to look perfect!”

“No?” The voice was much closer now, from the bathroom door, and Harry twisted around to face it. “What a shame I wasted the effort, then.”

Harry had nothing to say to this. In fact, he had nothing to say at all, because the vision confronting him had robbed him of the power of speech. Draco was posed in the open doorway, leaning negligently against the jamb, his head cocked to one side and a smirk of supreme smugness on his face.

“Well?” he prompted.

Harry just swallowed and ran his eyes over Draco’s lean form, taking in every detail.

From the crown of his artfully-coifed head to the tips of his Mod, pointy-toed ankle boots, Draco’s look was calculated to shock and fascinate in equal measure. For starters, he was wearing makeup, something Harry had never seen him do before but that he instantly adored. His eyes were lined with kohl, the lashes blackened, the lids touched with sparkling pink and magenta. The same magenta painted his lips and streaked his hair, which was pulled up into an intricate top-knot, then allowed to fall down his back in a plaited switch that brushed his shoulder blades. His crop-top of baby pink with sequined leopard spots slid coyly off one pale shoulder and ended halfway down his ribcage, leaving bare the hard, flat plane of his stomach, while his trousers rode so low on his hips that they were barely decent. And if Harry’s eyes weren’t playing tricks on him, the trousers themselves were…

“Leather?” Harry finally managed to choke out. “Are those _leather?_ ”

“They are.”

“Where did you get them?”

“Blaise.”

Of course. Harry could easily see Blaise Zabini in those absurdly sexy, skin-tight trousers. And he probably _had_ seen Ginny in that shirt.

“They’re… umm…” At that point, words failed him.

Draco pushed himself away from the doorjamb and turned, showing off the glove-like fit of the black leather across his arse and down his thighs. It was buffed to a dull shine that highlighted every curve and bulge. As he twisted still further around, Harry got one good look at his cock pushing arrogantly against the straining leather and groaned aloud.

At the sound, Draco dropped the pose and turned to face him squarely. He looked taken aback.

“Is it too much?”

Harry collected himself, dragged his mind out of his own pants, and took a moment to consider his lover’s question. Draco was not challenging or taunting him. He was asking honestly, expecting an honest answer, and Harry was suddenly not at all sure what that answer should be.

“I don’t know,” he temporized. “What are you trying to accomplish?”

Draco tossed his head defiantly and planted his fists on his hips. “To show them that I’m not afraid.”

“Of what?”

“My parents are going to try to shame me, put me on the defensive, make an issue of how I live and with whom. But I am who I am and I’m not ashamed of it.” He lifted his chin, his eyes flashing magnificently. “I’m going to shove it down their fucking throats!”

“Okay, fair enough,” Harry nodded, “but there’s a difference between making a point and making trouble. You have to treat the Wizengamot with respect or you’ll lose the fight before it even starts.”

“What are you suggesting?” Again, there was no challenge in his question, just honest worry.

“Well… You can be you, show them you’re not ashamed, without deliberately antagonizing them.”

Draco’s confidence visibly faltered. He lifted a hand to touch his magenta-streaked hair and ventured, “The hair’s wrong, isn’t it?”

“No, the hair is brilliant. So is the makeup. Even the trousers may work, if…” Harry broke off to study him for another handful of seconds, then asked, “Do you trust me?”

Draco frowned. “To do what?”

“Make your point the right way.”

It was Draco’s turn to hesitate, to cock his head and eye the other man thoughtfully. Then he nodded. “I do.”

 

*** *** ***

 

Draco swept into the Wizengamot courtroom in a swirl of embroidered robes and frothing lace, with Potter in full Auror regalia at his side and Granger trailing at their heels. His parents were there before him, standing at the back of the dark, sunken well of the dungeon floor, in close conversation with a gaunt individual that he assumed was their barrister. They glanced up at his entrance, and even in the dim light, Draco could see the contempt in his father’s face.

He lifted his chin at a still more arrogant angle and strode over to them, every step parting his robes to reveal a flash of leather-clad legs.

“Good morning, Draco,” his mother said. Her voice was calm, but her look was reproachful.

“Mother,” he said, matching her cool tone to perfection. “Father. Lovely morning to spend in a dungeon, isn’t it?”

Lucius curled his lip, raked his son with a withering gaze, and drawled, “How nice to see that you take this situation seriously. Is it for my benefit that you’ve painted yourself up like a two-Sickle trollop, or for theirs?” He waved a languid hand toward the packed benches above them.

Draco did not turn to look at the massed eyes fixed on them. He kept his half-lidded gaze on his father, a smile lifting one corner of his mouth in lofty disdain. “You may be surprised to hear this, Father, but nothing I do is for your benefit anymore.”

With that, he whirled away and caught Harry’s hand to draw him toward the front of the floor. As he fell into step at Draco’s side, Harry bent to murmur in his ear, “Don’t let him rattle you. You look stunning and you know it.”

He had a point. Draco did look stunning, and he did know it.

Harry had made only a few tweaks to his wardrobe, exchanging the crop-top for an old-fashioned cambric shirt with falls of lace at the cuffs and throat, and topping it all with his most traditional robes. Then Granger had provided the finishing touch by sticking a silver comb in the shape of a flying dragon in his elaborate top-knot. The result was to elevate his look from an act of petty rebellion to a bold, beautiful statement.

Draco loved it. He felt like a Medieval prince in Mod boots and makeup, and it gave him a confidence he would not have believed possible in this fraught situation.

The last time he’d set foot in this dungeon, he was a beaten, helpless, humiliated seventeen-year-old boy, huddling in a chair wrapped with chains, facing down the fury of a purple-robed mob. They called themselves judges, but they might just as well have been waving torches and pitchforks, so bent on vengeance were they. Harry had saved him then, standing up to them all without flinching, speaking out on his behalf and persuading them to listen. Now here they were again, in the same dungeon, with the same purple wall looming over them, but Draco was no longer that terrified boy and he didn’t need Harry to save him this time. He could take care of himself.

Still, it was nice to have the world’s sexiest savior at his side, even if just for moral support. He squeezed Harry’s hand in mute gratitude as they came to a stop near the high center barrier.

A tiny, mousy witch in charcoal-grey administrative robes was standing in the lowest tier, wand in hand. She studied the people below, her lips moving as she silently counted them off. Then she twirled her wand, and six chairs popped into existence several feet above the floor. They settled neatly in a loose semi-circle, three to each side of the chain-draped chair that dominated the space.

“If you would take your seats, please,” she squeaked.

Draco immediately claimed the three chairs on the right, bowing Granger courteously into the one closest to the center (he honestly couldn’t help himself; it was the long robes and lace cuffs messing with his mind) and taking the center one for himself. Harry settled in the chair to his right hand, looking so composed and commanding that Draco had the sudden, irresistible urge to snog him senseless.

Not the best idea, with the entire Wizengamot watching—and they were _all watching_ , he realized, as he looked away from Harry in a bid for self control and scanned the benches above. All fucking fifty of them! And at least that many more spectators crowding the benches to either side! Clearly, the word had gotten out that the Malfoys were making trouble again, and Wizarding Britain was indulging in its second favorite sport (after Quidditch) of Malfoy-Spotting.

Putting all those gloating eyes out of his mind, Draco concentrated his attention on the lowest bench, where the first-string players sat. He knew most of them by sight. Griselda Marchbanks, the Chief Warlock, sat in the middle of the row in a raised seat, with Kingsley Shacklebolt, Gawain Robards, Percy Weasley, and a woman he did not recognize to either side. The stranger was a broad, hard-faced witch with clusters of iron-grey curls about her face and a gimlet glare that reminded Draco painfully of Minerva McGonagall. He caught her eye and instantly felt as if he’d been found out doing something naughty.

Stretching his arm across the back of Harry’s chair, he leaned close to whisper, “Who’s the battle-axe beside Marchbanks?”

“That’s Aurelia Pauncefoot, Head of the DMLE,” Harry whispered back.

“Hmm.” That fit. She looked like a woman who positively relished punishing evil-doers.

“She’s not a bad sort. Scary as fuck when she’s angry, but fair.”

“Good to know.”

A movement to Draco’s left announced that his parents were taking their seats. Like Draco before them, they positioned their barrister toward the center, whether as a buffer between them and their wayward son, or because they didn’t want to sit any closer to the prisoner’s chair with its rattling chains than necessary, he couldn’t say. Draco wasn’t so sure about his own motives, truth be told, and so was not inclined to criticize.

No sooner had Narcissa finished arranging her robes to her exacting standards than the Chief Warlock rose to her feet. She was another no-nonsense type, demanding of respect if not of liking, who had stood her ground against the worst abuses of Fudge’s administration and survived Voldemort’s reign. She was tall—taller than Draco himself, he guessed—and wand thin, with silver hair cut boyishly short to accentuate the stark bones of her face. Her plum-colored robes didn’t do her complexion any favors, but she struck an impressive figure, and Draco instinctively straightened up under her eyes, folding his hands demurely in his lap.

Marchbanks cleared her throat and said, “I see that all parties are present, so we can begin. Weasley, if you would…”

“Excuse me, Madam Marchbanks.” Lucius’ hawk-faced barrister sprang to his feet. “Before you convene this hearing, we ask that Harry Potter be removed from the courtroom.”

Marchbanks’ brows rose but her expression did not change. “Auror Potter? Why?”

“He has no business here. His presence is disruptive…”

Marchbanks shifted her gaze to where Harry sat in composed silence. Her brows scaled up even higher. Harry smiled at her.

“…and is nothing but a deliberate attempt by the defendant to sway the court!” Bloodworth finished.

Turning to Draco, Marchbanks asked, “Why did you bring Auror Potter with you today, Mr. Malfoy?”

Draco looked straight back at her and answered, loudly, “Harry Potter is my domestic partner and co-parent to my son.”

A frisson of delighted horror went through the room, bringing a faint, sardonic smile to Draco’s painted lips. Every witch and wizard in that dungeon knew that Harry Potter was living with the perverted spawn of Lucius Malfoy—it was the juiciest scandal to rock their world since the death of Lord Voldemort—so this came as news to precisely no one, but still they felt it necessary to gasp and twitter.

He went on smoothly, “Since he is as much a part of the baby’s life as I am, I thought it right to have him here.”

Marchbanks regarded him steadily for another moment, then turned to the barrister. “Sit down, Mr. Bloodworth.”

“We strenuously object!” Bloodworth insisted, still on his feet. “Potter is not Draco Malfoy’s spouse, and as such, has no legal standing in this matter! This is nothing but celebrity grandstanding…”

“Sit down, Mr. Bloodworth.” She did not raise her voice or show a hint of temper, but she stopped the barrister dead in his tracks. Draco deeply admired her finesse.

When Bloodworth was back in his chair, looking mutinous but not daring to open his mouth, she went on, “As co-parent to the child, Auror Potter is party to this dispute and his presence is appropriate. And I see no reason why the younger Mr. Malfoy should not have the support of his family, as does the elder.”

She waited for the murmurs from the benches to quiet, then went on in a dry voice, “As for Mr. Bloodworth and his objections, I would like to make it clear from the start that this is _not_ a criminal trial and courtroom antics have no place here. This is an informal hearing to investigate claims about the wellbeing of a child…”

“Then what are _we_ doing here?” a querulous voice called from the upper benches.

Marchbanks broke off and turned to gaze at the sea of purple robes above her. A small, wispy figure rose to its feet that Draco recognized as Wilkie Twycross, the wizard who had taught Apparition classes at Hogwarts. He looked as insubstantial as ever but far more animated than he ever had in class. There was nothing vague or dreamy about him today.

“If this isn’t a trial, why call the entire Wizengamot to witness it? And since when do _we_ have anything to say about how a wizard raises his own child?” Twycross pointed at Draco. “There’s the boy’s father. Alive and well and perfectly capable of caring for his child.” That earned a chorus of snickers from the crowd, and Draco tilted his chin up haughtily in response. “If it were the mother challenging his rights, perhaps that would be a matter for this court, but the grandparents? Faugh! And on what grounds? Some ancient law that none of us has ever heard of? Preposterous!”

Another member of the Wizengamot, a middle-aged witch that Draco did not recognize, rose to her feet and called, “Where is the boy’s mother, then? Doesn’t she have a say in the matter?”

Marchbanks answered in a flat voice, betraying no emotion. “Mademoiselle Crécy declined to attend this hearing. Her exact words were…” She paused and held out a hand to Percy, waiting for him to place a small piece of blue parchment in it. Then she read, “‘Let them fight it out between them. It’s nothing to me.’”

Draco gave a soft snort of laughter, swinging Marchbanks’ steely gaze round to him.

“You find this amusing, Mr. Malfoy?”

“Not remotely.” Draco smirked at her. “But you’ll have to admit that she has a way with words.”

“Hmph,” Aurelia Pauncefoot snorted. “Way with words or not, the woman hasn’t got an ounce of maternal instinct. How did you end up with custody of the child, Malfoy?”

Draco’s mouth tightened with anger, and his voice was as sharp as a diamond blade when he said, “I assumed she intended for me to have custody when she dropped him on my doorstep in a cardboard box.”

Lucius stirred and opened his mouth, but Narcissa clasped his arm in warning, silencing him.

“In a _cardboard box?_ ” Pauncefoot demanded. “Are you serious?”

“Quite.”

“Seems to me that we’ve got the wrong parent up in front of this court,” she said grimly.

“One mess at a time, Aurelia,” Marchbanks cut in. “Let me address Wilkie’s concerns, then we’ll get down to business.”

Pitching her voice to fill the room, she went on, “This situation is very irregular and not very pleasant. I would prefer to handle it more discreetly, but as Lucius and Narcissa have alleged criminal wrongdoing on the part of their son, I’m obliged to hear the charges before the entire Wizengamot.” At this point, her eyes cut over to Draco’s parents, and the look in them was not friendly. “As I’m sure they were aware when they filed the complaint.

“Whatever their reasons for bringing this matter to the Wizengamot, Lucius and Narcissa are entitled to a hearing. That said, the charges brought against Draco Malfoy are so peculiar—not to say incredible—that I am inclined to view them with suspicion, and I am not ready to take action against him until I know more. That is why I am treating this as an informal Evidentiary hearing and letting all parties speak for themselves without the restrictions of a formal trial. You,” she waved a hand at the rows of purple-clad figures, “are here to listen, weigh the evidence, and vote on any question concerning criminal charges or punishment.”

She turned her attention to the six people seated on the floor. “You are here to state your cases and answer our questions, not to indulge in verbal warfare. Legal counsel may advise you and address the court, if asked. They may _not_ impede these proceedings with frivolous nonsense.” Here, her gaze shifted to Bloodworth and lingered threateningly. “Do I make myself clear?”

Draco, Harry and Hermione all nodded soberly. Lucius and Narcissa just stared, tight-lipped, at Marchbanks, while Bloodworth found something unreasonably fascinating about the cuff of his robe.

Marchbanks gave them all another thirty seconds to absorb her words, then she turned to Percy. “Are you getting all this, Weasley?”

Percy looked up from his mad scribbling to nod emphatically. “Yes, Madam Marchbanks!”

“Excellent. Then let’s get right to it. Mr. Malfoy…”

“Please,” Draco interjected, “call me Draco. There are too many Malfoys in the room.”

Marchbanks quirked a humorless smile at him. “Draco. Would you stand and address the court, please?”

Draco rose to his feet, making his heavy robes swirl about his legs, and gazed expectantly up at the Chief Warlock with his hands clasped behind his back.

“I understand that you are the father of the minor child known as Felix Felicis Malfoy?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“And that the boy’s mother, Fantine Crécy, left him to your sole care?”

Draco smothered a sardonic grin at that. “Yes, Ma’am.”

“And this boy, Felix…” She broke off and fixed him with the first real, unguarded expression he’d seen on her granite face. He could only describe it as baffled. “Did you really name your child after a potion?”

This time, Draco did smile, but he wiped it away quickly and set his lips in a prim line. “Felix means Happiness.”

“I’m well aware of what it means,” she retorted dryly.

“Well.” His smile twitched to life again. “If you don’t like Felix, call him Bob.”

She snorted at that and rolled her eyes. “Bob. Honestly. Is it true that this boy, _Felix_ , is the last of the Black and Malfoy family lines?”

“He’s the last Malfoy. Teddy Lupin is a Black, but since his mother and grandmother were both disowned, he apparently doesn’t count. In a magical sense, I mean,” he added, with a deprecating wave of his hand.

“Lupin… Lupin…” she mumbled, reaching down to shuffle through the papers on Percy’s desk. “Would that be Remus Lupin, the werewolf?”

“Yes, Ma’am. Teddy is the son of Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks.”

“Ah. ’Dromeda’s child. Yes, that would explain it.”

Draco heard a soft sound from his mother and caught her uncomfortable movement from the corner of his eyes.

“The Blacks had a nasty habit of disinheriting people,” Draco said coolly, “otherwise they would have other heirs to fall back on in this situation.”

“Hm.” The corner of Marchbanks’ mouth twitched.

Draco was beginning to like this woman.

“And am I to understand that this entire dispute hinges on your desire to disinherit _your_ son, thus denying him the Black and Malfoy legacies?”

“That’s right.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because they’re rubbish,” he stated baldly, setting off a wave of murmurs in the seats above and bringing an angry hiss from his father. Pushing ahead in spite of the noise, he tilted his head at his parents and said, “I was raised on the notion that I was somehow superior, gifted with special abilities and the promise of unmatched power, simply because I was born a Malfoy. And because I was the only male heir, I was expected to carry on the name, to increase and pass down that power, no matter what the cost to myself. No one bothered to tell me what this arcane power was or how I was meant to use it. It turns out, no one told me because no one knew. Because the power doesn’t exist. It’s a fantasy in my parents’ fevered brains.”

“How _dare you?!_ ” Lucius roared, leaping to his feet and turning on Draco, his tall body coiled like a snake’s to strike. “We raised you to honor your family and your name! To protect your legacy! To protect your _blood!_ And what do you do? Spit in our faces! Disgrace us and everything we stand for! Turn your back on your family, your name, your _future_ to become the painted plaything of a half-blood…”

“That’s enough!” Marchbanks snapped, cutting him off. When she had reduced Lucius to seething silence, she went on coldly, “This is not about your son’s choice of partner or his mode of dress. If you cannot stick to the subject at hand…”

“This _is_ the subject at hand! You only need look at him,” Lucius spat, eyeing his son’s slender form up and down with open contempt, “to see that he is unfit to raise a child! And his latest decision to abuse his own son by…”

“Lucius.” This time, the warning came from Shacklebolt, whose deep voice filled the room like warm treacle and smothered his father’s ranting. Fixing his dark, compelling eyes on Lucius, Shacklebolt said, “I think you would do well to think about what you’re saying. If denying a child an inheritance is abuse, then half the pureblood families in Britain, including your wife’s, are guilty many times over.”

“If you gentlemen will allow me.” Narcissa rose grandly to her feet, drawing all eyes inexorably, and struck a regal pose. “I grant you that this is not about my son’s lifestyle or his questionable fashion sense.”

In deliberate provocation, Draco settled into his chair, one leather-clad leg crossed over the other, and rested a hand on Harry’s leg. Then he fixed a faintly taunting gaze on his mother and waited. He could have sworn that he caught a glimpse of Marchbanks smirking at him.

He definitely liked this woman.

“Nor is it about what my family may have done in the past. It is about Draco’s current intentions. He is the heir to an ancient and powerful Magical Inheritance, passed down through generations of pureblood witches and wizards, and he proposes simply to discard it. To cut off our Family Trees at the roots and let them wither!”

“I’m not doing anything to your precious Family Trees,” Draco drawled, “I’m protecting my son from your twisted dynastic obsessions.”

She flung out a hand toward her son in a gesture every bit as dramatic as any Draco could muster and declared, “ _That_ is why we are here, today! _That_ is the crime plotted by my only son! To deny his child his magical heritage, his full potential as a pureblood wizard of noble family! To deny him even his _name!_ ”

Drawing herself up to her full, imposing height, she modulated her voice into stern sobriety and said, “According to International Wizarding Law, it is a crime to attack the magical wellbeing of a child, or to attempt to deny that child his lawful place in wizarding society. Loth as I am to say it, my son is guilty of these crimes, and it is our duty to protect our grandson from him.”

Everyone seemed a bit stunned by this pronouncement, until Granger cleared her throat and got to her feet. She had nothing like Narcissa’s presence, but even with shorter stature, bushy hair coming loose from its bun, and dull brown robes, there was no hiding her staggering intellect.

“If I may, Madam Marchbanks.” She gave the Chief Warlock a respectful smile that fooled no one in that high chamber. Hermione Granger waited for no one’s permission to speak.

Marchbanks nodded. “Ms. Granger.”

“I’ve done a bit of research into this law that Mrs. Malfoy mentioned, looking for some precedent for applying it. You’ll agree, surely,” her smile turned wry, “that the wording is a bit vague. Not to say, obscure.”

“I would,” Marchbanks replied.

“We all would,” Shacklebolt interjected. “Go on, Ms. Granger. This should be most instructive.”

“Well, it turns out that there _is_ no precedent for applying the law because it’s been virtually forgotten since 1556.”

“Hmph,” Madam Pauncefoot snorted.

Granger gave her a twinkling smile. “The law first appeared in northern Gaul in 597 CE, when a powerful, pureblood wizard died, leaving a young wife and infant son behind. The widow married again, a wealthy Muggle from another tribe, and tried to take her son away from his father’s family. The family blocked the move on the grounds that taking the child into Muggle society would stunt his magical growth. At the Wizard’s Council session where the law was drafted, it was openly stated that the child should remain among wizards and avoid the ‘Muggle taint’, in order to keep his magic ‘pure.’”

She shot a look at the other table. “Those were the Head of the Council’s exact words. Since then, the law has been invoked a handful of times, usually to serve ends that quite obviously had nothing to do with the child’s wellbeing, and each time it was interpreted differently. No one could agree what ‘magical wellbeing’ actually meant, and no one could quite figure out how to tell when this nebulous concept was being threatened or how to prevent it. Only twice—in the first instance and again in 1556, when a grieving widower wanted to hand his two young children over to a religious order for training as monks—has the law been upheld. Since the monk incident, it has fallen into much-deserved obscurity, like so many of the antiquated and pointless laws that wizarding kind has preserved out of a misguided infatuation with the past.”

Granger fell quiet, letting her eyes travel over the front row of seats. When no one spoke, she sat down with a satisfied smile.

Shacklebolt nodded his thanks and said, “Lucius, Narcissa, do you have anything to add?”

Lucius got stiffly to his feet, and Draco saw his mother clasp his hand in warning. His manner was cold, haughty, but once more rigidly controlled when he said, “Ms. Granger’s opinion of the law is irrelevant. It is Wizarding Law, and Draco is breaking it. I am well aware that the current climate in Britain is harshly anti-Pureblood, but I charge this court to consider that my blood status, and that of my wife, is no more relevant to this matter than my son’s… _domestic arrangements_. Why should we be accused of perpetuating pureblood bigotry simply because we want to ensure our grandson’s birthright?”

“No one is accusing you of anything, Lucius,” Shacklebolt replied affably. “It is you who have leveled accusations at Draco.”

A ghost of a sneer passed over Lucius’ face, quickly banished. “That boy is family. We care for him. We want to see him thrive and, ultimately, come into his full power. That is not a Pureblood right; it is every wizard’s right.” His eyes cut over to Granger, challenging her. “Is that not why we welcome Half-blood and Muggleborn children into our world? So they can reach their full magical potential and strengthen all of us with their gifts?”

“It is,” Granger answered, her voice tight with a contempt she would not show openly, “and somehow they all seem to reach that full potential without magical inheritances to bolster their power.”

 _Bravo_ , Draco thought, _have at him._

Madam Pauncefoot leaned forward, piercing Lucius with her gimlet eye. “You speak of the magic this child will someday inherit, but what, precisely, does it consist of?”

Lucius lifted his chin arrogantly and opened his mouth to speak, but Draco was suddenly on his feet.

“I’ll answer that,” he snapped.

His father’s eyes cut over to lock on his and Draco detected something like fear in them. “You have already told the court what you think of your family legacy. It is my turn to speak.”

“Oh, I wasn’t planning to _speak_ , Father.” Holding Lucius’ gaze, Draco pushed up the wide sleeve of his robe and opened the button at his lace-edged cuff. “Just to _show_ them.”

With a sharp, angry gesture, he shoved both sleeves up above his elbow to bare his forearm. Then he thrust his arm out, turning it ’til the torchlight fell on the ugly, black image burned into his skin.

A ripple of shock and horror went through the crowd.

“ _This_ is my father’s legacy!” Draco called, letting his voice carry to the back rows of spectators. “ _This_ is what he passed down to his only son! And _this_ is what I would spare my own son—what I would bring to an end, finally, by cutting him off from the Malfoy inheritance! This ancient, proud, _noble_ legacy.” He paused at every word, lacing them with irony and disgust. Then he swept the room with his gaze and added, “Do you blame me?”

Dead silence met his words, as every set of eyes in the room stayed riveted on his Dark Mark. Then his father spoke, his voice trembling with suppressed fury.

“You reduce everything we have given you, everything we have done for you, our entire lives to one wretched mistake!”

“What have you given me, Father, besides a name that’s loathed by every decent witch and wizard in our world, thanks to your _one mistake_? Money? I don’t need it. Social position? You destroyed that when you kissed Lord Voldemort’s feet. Power? The power I have I was born with. It was not bequeathed to me by my ancestors or handed me by you like a new racing broom. As for Felix…”

Draco broke off, then swung his gaze to the man seated so quietly beside him in his red Auror’s robes. “Harry Potter is the most powerful wizard alive, and he will be another father to my son. What better magical legacy could any child ask for?”

Once again, his words rang into silence. No one moved or spoke.

Then Narcissa said, her voice heavy with reproach, “We gave you your son.”

Draco spun on his heel, fixed his eyes on her, and spoke the unforgivable truth at last. “Yes, but you had to rape me to do it.”

An audible gasp met his words, echoed a hundred times, even as Lucius rounded on him with blood in his eye and his mother cried out in protest.

“Draco, _no!_ ”

“ _Liar!_ ” Lucius snarled. “Foul, contemptible _LIAR!_ Is nothing beneath you?!”

“Funny, I was going to ask you the same question…”

“Have you no shame, that you speak such words to your own _mother?!_ ”

“I’m speaking the truth—a foreign concept to you, I know, but try to keep up, Father.”

“I will not stand here and listen to you accuse your mother of…”

“Not just Mother. You’re as guilty as she is, and of course, that French Veela twat you hired to rape me.”

“I see. In your perverted mind, healthy relations with a woman are rape, while bending over for the likes of Potter is _love?_ ”

“I bend over for Potter because I _want to._ I had sex with that Veela because she gave me _no choice_!”

Throughout this exchange, the noise in the room had grown ever louder and more heated, until no one could pick out individual words. Finally, Madam Marchbanks cast a _Sonorous_ charm and bellowed, “ _ENOUGH!_ ”

Everyone, even Lucius, fell quiet.

Banishing the spell, she continued at a more normal volume, “Draco, are you telling us that you conceived that child against your will?”

He lifted his chin proudly, eyes veiled behind blackened lashes to conceal his embarrassment. Now that he stopped to catch his breath, he realized just what poison he and his father had been spitting at each other and he devoutly hoped that the general riot had drowned them out. “I am.”

“How is that possible?”

He swallowed and said, holding his voice rigidly even, “She was a Veela. My parents paid her to seduce me, then _Obliviated_ me after it was done. I knew nothing about any of it, until the child appeared on my doorstep.”

“We had to do _something_ ,” Narcissa almost wailed. “He was going to let the families die out… the inheritances be lost forever… We couldn’t let that happen! We chose a Veela to make it easier for him, then we altered his memories to spare him any concern or embarrassment when he went home to his… to Potter.”

Draco quirked an ironic smile at Marchbanks and twitched his head in his mother’s direction. “You see now why I’m so anxious to protect my son from all that? They were willing to rape me to get what they wanted…”

“It was _not rape!_ ” Narcissa cried furiously. “I would never do that to my own son!”

“You hooked me up with a Veela!”

“You enjoyed it! I watched you through the evening, watched how you danced and laughed with her, made certain you _liked_ her!”

“Of course I liked her! She was a _Veela!_ I _didn’t have a choice!_ ”

“That does not make it rape!”

“Er…” Granger stood. “Actually, it does.”

“Nonsense!” Narcissa huffed. “As if I would let anyone hurt my son that way!”

“You can protest all you like, Mrs. Malfoy, but it was still rape.”

“Poppycock!” a voice called from somewhere above.

Then another growled, “Boy should count himself lucky!”

As more comments flew, most of them congratulating Draco on bedding a Veela, Marchbanks rose to her feet again.

“Quiet! All of you!” The hubbub died down, and she turned to Granger. “Ms. Granger, are you speaking in legal terms, or moral ones?”

“Both, I should think, but the law is clear. As most of you are aware, my area of expertise is Wizarding law as it concerns the regulation of Non-Human Magical Creatures, and while I don’t have much to do with Veela, I’m very familiar with this law.” She gave Narcissa, who was visibly fuming, a hard look. “You allowed that woman to rape your son. That’s a fact. Worse, you paid her to do it, then you erased his memory so he wouldn’t realize that he’d been violated. You may not have grasped the legal implications of what you were doing, but you certainly knew it was wrong. Why else would you hide it from him?”

“That’s… that’s insane…” Narcissa blustered.

“Some people,” here she cut a glance at Pauncefoot and Shacklebolt, “might think what you did to your son for the sake of a grandchild was insane, but it’s not for me to judge. All I know is that you both disgust me.”

With that, she sat down and crossed her arms over her chest. Draco stepped up close to her chair and dropped a hand to her shoulder, squeezing it in thanks. She gave him a tight-lipped smile.

“Mr. Malfoy,” Madam Pauncefoot growled.

“Which one?” Draco quipped lightly, trying to throw off the sickness that clung to him after his mother’s outburst and his own revelation.

Pauncefoot smiled grimly at him. “Draco. You’ve made some very serious allegations.” He gave a jerky nod. “Do you wish me to take this any further? To investigate and bring charges against your parents or Mademoiselle Crécy?”

“All I want is to keep them away from my son. All of them. And to cut him out of this ridiculous inheritance, before it poisons his life the way it has mine.”

Madam Pauncefoot nodded, her mouth sent in a grim line. “I believe we can manage that.”

“What about you, Potter?” Robards suddenly ground out, entering the fray for the first time. “You’ve been awfully quiet through all this. Do you have anything to say?”

Harry looked around, as if surprised to be called upon, then rose to his feet and stepped in close to Draco’s side. His arm slipped around Draco’s waist. Draco leaned into him.

“Like what?”

“Like, do you want to raise the son your lover conceived through rape?”

The baldness of the question came across as a challenge, and the entire courtroom fell quiet to listen.

“Of course I want to raise Draco’s son. He’s a delightful little chap—or as delightful as a baby can be at two weeks old—and it’s not his fault that his grandparents are fairly twisted or that his mother is a French Veela twat.” He shot a sideways smile at Draco and tightened his hold on him. “I love him. I love his father. I’ll do anything for them.”

“And what do you think about this business of disinheriting the boy?”

Harry shrugged. “It’s what Draco wants, so I’m good with it. It’s not like we need the money. Or the magic.”

Draco gave him a blazing, beatific smile, and turned in the circle of his arm to plant a kiss on his cheek. It left a bright magenta imprint behind and made Harry blush. Neither man paid any attention to hum of noise from the benches above as they gazed into each other’s eyes.

“I call for a vote!” Shacklebolt roared, drawing all eyes to him. “I propose that this court clear all charges laid against Draco Malfoy and confirm his guardianship of the minor child Felix Felicis Malfoy! I further propose a Writ denying Lucius Malfoy, Narcissa Black Malfoy and Mademoiselle Fantine Crécy access to the minor child, unless expressly permitted by his father! How say you? All in favor?”

With a shuffling of feet and a few scattered coughs, the Wizengamot rose, _en masse_ , to its feet. The officials in the first row looked up at them all with evident satisfaction, only Percy, who was still furiously writing, and Robards not turning to register the response.

Then Marchbanks rapped the handle of her wand on the barrier and called, “The decision is unanimous! Mr. Malfoy, Mr. Potter, Ms. Granger, you may go. Thank you for your patience. Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy, we’ll have some documents for you to sign, if you’ll wait in my office.”

Before Draco could react to any of this, he found himself swept up into Harry’s arms and soundly kissed. Granger was patting him on the back, saying something, but he paid her no mind. All his attention was on the lips crushing his, the arms bearing him up off his feet, and the erection nudging his thigh.

Trust Harry to get hard over a Wizengamot verdict.

As Harry finally let him go and eased him back onto his feet, Draco heard a familiar, sneering voice from just behind him. “I supposed you’re quite pleased with yourself. That any son of mine would parade around in lipstick and leather trousers…”

“In fact, I am,” Draco replied without taking his eyes from Harry’s grinning face and the lipstick smearing his mouth. He smiled back and wiped at Harry’s lower lip with his thumb. They both laughed.

“You look quite debauched,” Harry remarked.

“Must be the leather trousers.”

“Mmm. I hope so.” Harry slipped a hand under Draco’s robes to squeeze his leather-clad arse. “And I hope Zabini wasn’t thinking he’d get them back anytime soon.”

“Draco, you can’t be serious about this,” Narcissa said in a low, urgent tone. “You can’t want to keep us away from our only grandchild! Felix is…”

“His name is Bob,” Draco cut in sharply. “Bob Malfoy.” Then he grinned at Harry again and amended, “Soon to be Bob Potter. And he’s no longer your grandson.”

His parents met this announcement with shocked silence, but Harry gave a shout of delight and swept Draco off his feet again to kiss him madly. When his mouth was free long enough for speech, Harry growled, “Let’s get home to our son!”

 

**_To be continued…_ **


	7. Best-Laid Potters and Best-Laid Plans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains a lot of smut - far more than I usually write - but the boys were in the mood and I thought they deserved some fun. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy it!

They stumbled out of the floo, still snogging and touching and clinging to each other so frantically that they barely managed to keep their feet. No sooner had they stepped clear of the hearth, than Harry spun Draco into the wall, leaning full against him, grinding his enflamed crotch into his belly and pushing his tongue deep into his mouth. Draco moaned wantonly and lifted one leg to press into Harry’s side.

They kissed deeply, hungrily, lips sliding on melted lipstick in a way that went straight to Draco’s cock. He was shaking, the breath sobbing in his throat, and his hips were rutting helplessly against Harry’s by the time the other man freed his lips enough for speech.

“Bloody hell, Potter,” he gasped, “what is it with you and walls?”

“I love the way you look spread out against them. Your hair against the wallpaper… your white skin… those long, perfect legs… I want to wrap them around me and pound you into the plaster…” Harry mumbled, as he worked his way down Draco’s neck toward his lacy collar.

Draco only moaned again, his head rolling to one side, his leg hooking higher around Potter’s hips and pulling him still closer.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Harry groaned into Draco’s sweat-dampened, lipstick-smeared skin, “you are so fucking _gorgeous…_ ”

“And _you_ are going to be so fucking embarrassed when Weasel comes through that floo with Bob…”

“He won’t.” Harry tore robe and shirt open, pushed them aside, and bit into Draco’s shoulder hard enough to send a shock of tantalizing pain through him. “He knows better.”

“We told him… Ah, fuck! _Harry!_ ” This last was dragged out of him when Harry wrenched the neck of his shirt wide and fastened his mouth on one nipple. His back arched, pushing him into his lover’s hot mouth, and Harry hummed his approval.

“Mmm… so good…”

“We told him we would pick up the baby after the hearing!”

“And Hermione saw me practically tearing your clothes off in the Atrium,” Harry said reasonably (though where he found the strength of mind to be reasonable when he was ravishing Draco up against the wall was a mystery). “She’ll head him off.”

He moved up to Draco’s throat again, sucking bruises into it, while his hands wandered down to his lover’s leather-clad bum.

“Merlin, it was killing me, watching you in that courtroom,” he breathed. His lips sought for Draco’s mouth, feasted on it, dragged a breathless moan from him before backing off to whisper against his swollen lips, “You were so fucking hot… the way you stood up to them… shoved your Mark in their faces…”

His fingers dragged up Draco’s arm, pulling up his sleeve, raking across his Dark Mark. Draco whimpered and pressed his aching cock into Harry’s thigh.

“Made them look… made them _see_ … Fuck, Draco, I wanted to go down on my knees in front of you on that dungeon floor.”

Harry’s knees began to fold, carrying him down toward the floor as he went on in that low, urgent, overheated tone.

“I wanted to smell and feel that gorgeous leather against my face.”

He parted Draco’s robes and pushed his nose into the straining leather at his crotch.

“I wanted to take you in my mouth and suck you off… to worship you… right there, where everyone could see…”

Now Harry was opening his flies, pulling down the zip, letting Draco’s cock spring free. He paused when he realized that no further barrier lay between him and his goal, then shot a wry look up at Draco from beneath his lashes.

“No pants?”

“They ruin the line of the trousers,” Draco informed him, trying for a superior tone but landing closer to desperate.

“The sacrifices we make for fashion,” Harry hummed.

“Fuck. Potter.” His cock jutted straight out from the V of his flies, straining for Harry, dripping with eagerness, and the smell of his own lust—trapped inside the confining leather for so long—struck him hard enough to make his stomach clench. He groaned and pushed his hips forward, searching for the mouth hovering just out of his reach. “Why are you still talking? _Why isn’t your mouth full?_ ”

Harry laughed and bent forward to nuzzle at the warm leather, pushing it aside, bringing his lips and tongue to Draco’s groin. At the same time, his hands slid up to clasp and massage Draco’s arse.

“These fucking trousers…” he murmured, stroking Draco infuriatingly with his moving lips.

“Off…” Draco gasped. “Get them _off!_ ”

“Mmm… not yet. I like them.”

He peeled the flies open still farther, baring more of Draco’s skin and running his tongue languorously across it.

“They make me incredibly hard. I was aching and wet through the whole hearing, just thinking about what you had on under those robes. And when you crossed your legs… showed them off… touched me just to rile them all up… Fucking hell, Draco! I could’ve bent you over the barrier and taken you, right there!”

“Do it now. Please.” (It seemed they’d reached the begging phase even faster than usual. Maybe Potter was right about the trousers.) “Or do you need an audience? Because I’ll gladly find you one, if that’s what it takes…”

He laughed again, making Draco shiver with want. “I’m just savoring the moment.”

“Savor _this,_ ” Draco hissed, grabbing his cock in one fist and bringing it to Harry’s lips.

“Mmm.” His tongue snaked out, caressed the swollen head of Draco’s cock, lapped up the slick wetness clinging to it, then finally guided it into his open mouth.

Draco cried out in mingled agony and relief, his head snapping back to strike the wall and his hands scrabbling at it for support as his knees buckled. Harry caught him and hooked his legs over his shoulders, at the same time swallowing Draco’s cock nearly to the root and dragging a guttural cry from him. Pleasure coiled, hot and urgent, in his belly. His hips jerked, thrusting him deeper into that glorious mouth. Harry sucked hard, the pressure almost more than Draco could bear without weeping. And then, almost before it had started, it was over, and he was coming in great, wracking waves, emptying himself down Harry’s throat and sobbing incoherent pleas to his perfect, remorseless lover.

He was still breathing in heaving gasps, his limbs watery and useless, his pale skin flushed and his lashes wet, when Harry pulled off him and sat back on his heels. Draco didn’t open his eyes, content to lie against the wall and sit astride Harry’s shoulders, but he could feel the other man’s gaze on him. Harry stroked his thigh, turned his head to press his cheek against it, then nipped lightly at the taut leather.

“So, back there in the dungeon,” Harry murmured into the sated silence, “did you ask me to marry you?”

“What?” Draco demanded fuzzily. He pried his eyelids up just enough to peer at Harry’s face. The other man met his bleary gaze, gave him a hopeful half-smile, and rubbed his cheek lovingly against his thigh. “Wha- what are you on about?”

“When you told your parents that Bob would soon be a Potter. Was that your way of proposing to me?”

Draco groaned and let his eyes fall shut again. “You’re not seriously asking me that _now?_ When there’s no blood left in my brain and I’m barely conscious?”

“I figured this was the safest time. Your defenses are down.”

“And I can’t be held accountable for anything I say. I’m not in my right mind.”

“Fair enough,” Harry chuckled. He bent forward to plant a kiss on Draco’s bare stomach, then rose to his feet, letting Draco’s legs slide off his shoulders and catching him around the waist to support him as he stood. Pulling the smaller man close and kissing his magenta-smeared lips, he added, “But we are going to discuss it.”

“Hmm,” Draco breathed, drinking in the taste and feel of him greedily.

“Maybe after I fuck you properly. Then we’ll both be in the same condition.”

“Blissed out of our minds and bloody useless?”

“Oh, yessss,” Harry sighed as he captured Draco’s lips again.

Draco could feel the hard length of Harry’s erection pressing into his loins through layers of heavy clothing and the possessive heat in Harry’s kiss. He hummed again, clinging to the other man’s taller body and wrapping himself around it in a blatant offer. He was still drained and boneless from his recent orgasm, but a sure knowledge of what was to come coursed through his body, sparking across his skin, warming his guts, making his cock stir, and sending his overloaded brain into a delicious spiral of want.

“Why aren’t we in bed?” he whispered, when Harry left his lips free for a brief moment. “Why aren’t you inside me?”

“Bed. Right,” Harry mumbled.

Even as he locked his lips to Draco’s again, he turned on the spot and pulled them both into the crushing darkness. Then they were standing in their own bedroom and Harry was walking Draco backwards toward the bed, still kissing him as if he could draw his soul out through his mouth. Draco surrendered to him without hesitation, letting Harry peel off his robes and shirt, then bear him backward onto the mattress. His boots and socks went next, leaving him dressed only in his trousers by the time Harry crawled onto the bed to join him.

Kneeling between Draco’s spread legs, Harry crouched over him and ran both hands up his thighs, pulling at the leather, dragging it against Draco’s overheated skin. Draco moaned and twisted against the coverlet, desperate to get the last of his clothing off and bring his body into contact with Harry’s but knowing better than to try to undress himself.

That was Potter’s job. Always. And interrupting him would only prolong the torment.

“I love these so much,” Harry growled, his face once more buried in the open front of Draco’s trousers. “So fucking much.”

“Nnngh!” was Draco’s only response.

“You’re never giving them back. You’re keeping them. And you’re wearing them… every day… _Oh, fuck_ , Draco…”

Finally, Draco felt Harry’s fingers hook in his waistband and tug the tight leather down over his hips, his bum, his thighs. He panted his encouragement and kicked his legs to free them of the tangling trousers. Then he was naked at last, sprawled heedlessly across the mattress, legs spread wide and lifting to welcome Harry’s weight between them. Harry disposed of his own clothing with a single thought, and suddenly, he was gloriously naked, lying atop Draco, pressing him into the mattress, giving him everything he craved.

Skin on skin. Cock sliding against cock. Lips crushed to lips. Tongues tangling and thrusting. It was Heaven—a filthy, furious, lust-fueled Heaven, where the angels wore Auror robes instead of wings, and the Blessed got fucked up against the drawing room wall a hundred times a day. Draco’skind of Heaven.

He whimpered into Harry’s mouth, begging for more. In answer, Harry pushed into him, breaching him and forcing a gasping cry from his lips. Draco bucked and swore, clutched at Harry’s arms ’til his nails tore the other man’s skin, while Harry drove remorselessly into him in one long, brutal thrust. By the time he felt Harry’s bollocks press against his arse and Harry’s hips dig into his thighs, Draco was sobbing with pain and want. Then Harry began to move.

It was just the way Draco liked it best—rough and unforgiving, no time to adjust or beg for mercy—and he met every thrust with panting eagerness. A keen of hunger rose in his throat, driving Harry on still faster and harder, until Draco felt his mind slipping out into the pain-shot darkness. His head fell back. His eyes rolled up and his lashes fluttered down. His hands opened and closed helplessly on Harry’s arms. He was a few seconds from losing consciousness, when Harry abruptly reared up on his hands and drove ruthlessly into him. Draco cried out, jolted back to full awareness by the pain, even as he felt Harry shudder and tense and flood him with heat.

“So fucking beautiful…” Harry ground out, his arms collapsing and dumping him back onto Draco’s chest. His hips were jerking uncontrollably, pumping hot spunk into Draco’s body and bruising him with their force. “Fucking beautiful… fucking _mine!_ ”

“H-Harry…” Draco stuttered. His own cock was aching, twitching, only a stroke or two from climax, but the weight atop him pinned him down so that he couldn’t find the friction he needed. “…please…”

Harry, dazed and drained as he was, responded instantly to the pain in his lover’s voice. Sliding half off of Draco’s body to free his cock, he captured his mouth in a searing kiss and wrapped his hand around his pulsing erection. Draco groaned and arched up into his grip, mouth falling open to take Harry’s tongue as deeply as he had his cock.

Two strokes, and Draco was shuddering, pumping his hips, sobbing against Harry’s lips. Three strokes, and he stiffened, his body a taut bow of desire. Four, and he came with a ragged scream, painting his stomach and Harry’s fist with hot, white streaks.

Harry continued to stroke and kiss him through the spasms, nipping gently at his lips, then licking the tears away from the corners of his eyes and smudging the kohl that ringed them. Finally Draco calmed, going limp and still, and Harry gathered him close in his arms. They lay together, just breathing, for long minutes until Draco’s mind came back into focus and he felt the come cooling on his skin.

Disgusting.

He loved being fucked raw by Potter, but he hated the smelly, sticky aftermath.

“I need a shower,” he grumbled into Harry’s shoulder.

A laugh shook the other man. “We don’t have time for that.”

“It only takes two minutes to wash you off my skin.”

“Except that you, naked in the shower, are completely irresistible. I’d have to join you. Then I’d have to fuck you into the wall.” Harry pushed himself up on an elbow and smiled down at Draco. “You know how I am about walls.”

“What if I said no?” Draco countered, one daunting Malfoy brow lifting.

“You wouldn’t.”

Draco thought about this for all of a second, then let his brow fall into its natural position and smiled. “No, I wouldn’t. But I can’t bear being this filthy for another minute.”

Harry grinned. “Allow me.”

Draco felt a Cleaning spell strip his skin, and suddenly he, Potter, and the bedclothes were all delightfully clean. It wasn’t until he smiled his thanks and started to draw Potter down into a kiss that he realized the other man’s face was still liberally smeared with magenta lipstick and traces of black kohl. He hesitated, his hand flat on Harry’s chest, holding him back.

“You still look like you’ve been snogging a two-Sickle trollop.”

“Oops.” Harry swept his hand down over his face, and all traces of makeup disappeared. Then he gazed wistfully down at Draco. “Do I have to take yours off?”

Draco snorted. “Do I look as ridiculous as you did just now?”

“You look beautiful. I love you in makeup.”

“I can always put it on again,” Draco pointed out.

Harry stroked his thumb over Draco’s lips, magically wiping away all trace of lipstick with his touch. “Will you? Please?”

“Every time I wear the leather trousers,” Draco replied, kissing his thumb and smiling playfully up at him.

Harry laughed and stroked his thumb across Draco’s right eye. “That would be every day, then.”

When all traces of paint were gone from Draco’s face, Harry gathered him up in his arms and settled them both against a pillow. Another stroke of Harry’s hand released Draco’s hair from its elaborate style, letting it tumble around his face. Then he tucked a magenta-streaked lock behind his ear and kissed him again, long and sweetly.

“We probably should collect Bob before we make any more messes you have to clean up,” Draco murmured sleepily.

“Mm.” Harry held and petted him in silence for a moment, then said, “I was proud of you, today. The way you stood up to your parents. I was _so_ proud.”

“Not just horny, then?”

“Not just horny. You behaved like a father.”

“Hmph.”

“You did. You can pretend that you don’t care about Felix all you like, but I know better. I know his safety, his future, his _happiness_ matter to you.”

“Hmph,” Draco said again, burrowing his face into Harry’s neck and inhaling his calming scent.

“You’ll be a brilliant father. I only wish there was some way we could have one of our own… give Felix a brother or sister…”

“What are you saying, Potter?!” Draco snapped, pushing abruptly away to glare at him.

“That I want you to have my baby. That the sight of you up the duff would drive me wild with desire, so I’d have to fuck you up against every wall in the house! Several times a day!”

“You do that anyway. And I haven’t heard any complaints about my looks.”

“Of course not. You’re the most beautiful, fabulous, fuckable man on the planet. But that doesn’t mean you couldn’t look even better, which you would with a little Potter inside you.”

“You’re completely mental,” Draco muttered, settling back into his place in Harry’s arms. “Luckily, there is no way you can get me… what was it? _Up the duff?_ So we don’t have to argue about it.”

Harry chuckled and kissed the top of his head. “Maybe there is. I’ll talk to Hermione, see what she can find. She’s got friends in the Department of Mysteries who might…”

“ _You will do no such thing!_ ” Once again, Draco pushed himself upright and glared down at his irrepressible lover. “If you really want another child, go find that French Veela twat and ask her to do the honors. I’m sure, for the right price, she’d pop out a little, green-eyed Potter-spawn for you!”

“But then it wouldn’t look like you, and I want _all_ my children to look like you.” Harry pulled him forcibly down into a kiss. “Then I’ll love them all as much as I do Felix.”

“There is no way for a wizard to get pregnant,” Draco insisted. “Trust me on this. If the Unspeakables knew of a way, don’t you think my bloody father would have heard of it?”

“I suppose,” Harry sighed. Then he brightened and offered, “I’ll bet the French Veela twat would have another one for _you_ if you asked nicely enough. Or paid her enough.”

“ _Not a sodding chance!_ ” Draco snarled through his teeth.

Harry shrugged and gave him a beguiling smile. “It wouldn’t be rape if you asked her to do it. And your mother said you liked her…”

“Potter, what the _fuck_ are you trying to do?! Get me so angry that I hex your stupid arse?!”

“Nope.” Harry grinned at him, no trace of wheedling or false innocence in him now. “Just making sure that you’re fully awake and in possession of your faculties. Anger is the best antidote to post-coital bliss.”

“I was enjoying my bliss,” Draco grumbled, to which Harry just laughed.

He sat up to face Draco and said, earnestly, “I need to know what you meant by that Bob Potter remark.”

“Oh.” Draco stilled, going suddenly wary. “That.”

“Yes, that. Were you asking me to marry you? Or were you hoping that I’d adopt Bob on my own?”

“No, I… No.” Draco swallowed and let his eyes slide away. “He’s my son. I won’t just… give him away, even to you.”

“I didn’t think so.” He reached over and took Draco’s hand, cradling it against his chest. “So that means both of you have to become Potters. Unless you were only saying it to torture your parents.”

“I wasn’t. At least… I don’t think I was.”

“Draco, my darling two-Sickle trollop, do I have to do the asking? Is that it?”

He swallowed again, painfully, then flicked his gaze to Harry and away. Finally, he nodded.

“All right, then. Draco Malfoy, will you marry me?”

“Not if you’re only doing it to get your filthy half-blood hands on my son.”

“Git,” Harry said, laughing, and gathered Draco up in his arms. He planted a kiss on the downturned corner of his mouth. “Of course that’s why I’m doing it. What possible use could I have for _you?_ ”

“Don’t wind me up, Harry. I’m serious.”

“And you seriously have to ask? What do you think? That I lived with you all these years on the off chance that, one day, you’d fall into bed with some French Veela twat and provide me with a son? You really are unbelievable!”

“That’s not what I think.”

“Then stop being a clot and say you’ll marry me!”

Draco slipped his arms around Harry’s neck, leaned into his body, and gazed intently into his eyes from only a few inches away. “If _I_ asked _you_ , would you say yes?”

“What kind of…!?”

With a groan of frustration, Draco lunged forward and caught his mouth in a bruising kiss. When he came up for air, nearly a minute later, he had his courage in his hands and tears in his eyes.

“Tell me you love me,” he whispered.

Harry breathed a sigh against his lips, feathered another kiss to them, and whispered, “I love you, Draco Sodding Malfoy.”

“Enough to marry me even if there was no baby?”

“In a heartbeat. I would’ve married you the day you moved in here, if I thought you’d agree. I’ve been trying for _years_ to come up with a way to ask you that wouldn’t scare you off!”

It was Draco’s turn to kiss Harry’s lips, to cling to them frantically for a moment, then to whisper against them, “I would have married you the first time you touched me.”

“The first time I touched you, I was trying to knock you off your broom.”

Draco smiled, his mouth still pressed to Harry’s. “I know. What’s your point?”

Harry laughed aloud and flipped Draco onto his back on the mattress. Grinning happily down at him, he demanded, “Then what in the name of Merlin’s Bloody Balls are we waiting for? Marry me, you twat!”

*** *** ***

Two days later, still riding high on his success at the hearing and everything that had followed, Draco was humming to himself as he worked his way through a mountain of laundry.   He sat in the drawing room amid neat stacks of clean garments and rank piles of dirty ones, undaunted by the smell or the menial quality of his task, waving his wand like an orchestra conductor to make the nappies dance as they folded themselves and settled in a perfect tower on the coffee table.

Harry said he looked like a fairy in a Disney movie (whatever the fuck _that_ was) when he did this, but Draco refused to let anything dampen his spirits. Even the inane observations of his prat of a fiancé. So, in defiance of Potter, he burst out in song and conjured up yet another square of filthy, smelly, sick-making fabric to scour clean.

He was still half-singing, having run out of words and fallen back on humming for the most part, when the wards tingled to announce a floo call. He didn’t bother to stop work. It had to be Granger or one of the Weasleys, and they could bloody well put up with a few dirty nappies. Then he turned and saw his Aunt Bellatrix floating in a halo of green flame.

His wand fell. The nappy collapsed into a fetid pile at his feet.

Obviously, it was not his Aunt Bellatrix. She was dead (thank Merlin and Circe and the whole sodding lot of them!) and therefore could not be floating in his fireplace. But even so, he couldn’t help recoiling in horror.

“Hello, Nephew.”

He gulped, willing his brain and body to behave. Then he rose to his feet with all the grace he could muster and crossed to the hearth. “Good morning, Aunt.”

It was his Aunt Andromeda, of course. The sister who looked and sounded like Bellatrix, carried herself like Narcissa, and acted more like Hermione Granger than either of her siblings. Andromeda was not exactly a stranger to him—she was in regular contact with Harry, which brought her into Draco’s orbit as well—but they were far from close. He treated her with guarded respect. She treated him with indifference. Or so he interpreted her distant smiles and nods of greeting as she wafted past him on some errand for her beloved grandson.

He found her presence in his fireplace unnerving, even now that he’d recovered from the initial shock.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked courteously. “If you’re looking for Harry…”

“I am not. May I come through? I’d like to speak with you.”

Draco blinked, nonplussed. The very last thing he’d expected (or wanted, truth be told) was a _tête-à-tête_ with his mother’s estranged sister. On the other hand, he couldn’t politely refuse.

“Of course,” he said coolly, stepping back from the hearth to give her room to enter.

A moment later, she stepped from the fireplace and shook her robes into place. She was tall, nearly Draco’s height, and held herself gracefully upright, giving the illusion of still more height. Grief had eroded some of her beauty, advancing age a little more, but she was only about fifty and not yet old by any reckoning. Draco supposed it was the loss of her husband and daughter, the bitterness of being an outcast from her family, and the strain of raising a rambunctious five-year-old half-werewolf metamorphmagus whose hair and face never looked the same for two minutes running that made her look so much older than his own mother.

She glanced around the room and said, in that voice that could still send shivers of loathing down his spine, “You’re busy, I see. I should have owled ahead, but I was afraid you wouldn’t agree to see me.”

“I’m always happy to see you, Aunt,” he said mendaciously. “Won’t you sit down?”

He glanced around, realized that all the available seats were piled with laundry, and used his wand to lift a stack of neatly-folded shirts from the most comfortable armchair. Andromeda swept over to the chair and placed herself in it with all the aplomb of a visiting monarch. Then she nodded at the bassinet that sat at one end of the sofa.

“May I meet your son?”

Once again, Draco had to fight his instinct to recoil from her (it would all be so much easier if she didn’t have _that face_ ). If any Black living could be trusted around his son, it was this one. But that didn’t make it any easier to reach into the bassinet, lift out the little body, and place it in her outstretched arms. He made himself do it. And he made himself smile as he did it, though the result was a trifle stiff.

If Andromeda noticed, she didn't remark on it. She took the baby, cuddled him expertly, and made foolish cooing noises at the oblivious Bob, while Draco looked on with that rigid smile on his lips.

Since the hearing, Draco had begun to relax around his son, to trust in his own parenting skills, and Bob’s behavior had mellowed accordingly. He was now almost as calm and cooperative for Draco as he was for Harry or Molly. And while Draco wouldn’t exactly call him scintillating company, he did enjoy having him around.

Now, watching him gaze up at this complete stranger with his opaque, grey eyes and not a trace of fear, Draco felt an unaccustomed spurt of pride in his tiny son. Then a wash of protectiveness. Then a strange, glowing ball of warmth somewhere in his chest that he could not name.

“He’s a perfect, little Malfoy, isn’t he?” Andromeda said.

“Let’s hope not,” Draco shot back, before he had time to think.

She looked up at him and smiled—a warm, genuine smile that looked totally out of place on Bellatrix’s face. “Not everything about the Malfoys is evil,” she said gently. “You’re not. Felix isn’t.”

“Bob,” Draco countered stubbornly.

Andromeda laughed at that, finally chasing away the shade of her sister once and for all. Draco cracked a real smile in answer. “No one is going to call a Black-Malfoy with Veela blood and a head of silver-blond hair _Bob_.”

“That’s his name.”

“You are a stubborn one.” She shook her head and shifted the bundle in her arms, holding it out to him. “Just like your father.”

Draco took the baby without comment, hoping that Andromeda couldn’t hear him grinding his teeth, and tucked him back into his bassinet. When Bob was safely snuggled in his fluffy yellow duckling blanket again, Draco recalled his manners and asked,

“Would you like some tea?”

“Perhaps later.” Andromeda fiddled with the fabric of her robes, then smoothed it flat over her knees. The gesture was oddly uncertain. Almost nervous. And Draco watched it curiously.

What in the name of Bleeding Hell could this woman have to be nervous about?

“I gather that you and Harry are getting married.” At Draco’s startled look, she added, “Molly told me.”

“Ah. Yes.” He flushed slightly in pleased embarrassment. “Harry will be sending you an invitation, I’m sure. You and Teddy. I know he wants you there.”

“Then we certainly will be.” She smoothed her robe again, eyes following her hands, and hesitated slightly before venturing, “I also gather that Harry will be adopting the baby.”

Draco’s brows rose. “You sound as if you don’t approve.”

“Not at all. Harry will be a wonderful father.”

“Then why do you object to my son becoming a Potter?”

She finally looked up to meet his frowning gaze and Draco knew that they had arrived at the reason for her visit. “I don’t, but… Nephew, have you considered the consequences of what you’re about to do?”

Draco’s brows lifted even higher, and his voice took on a sneering edge that he devoutly wished he could control but knew from long experience that he couldn’t. He was his father’s son, after all. “What I’m about to do? You mean, marry the man I love, give my son a proper family, and raise him to be something other than a hateful, pureblood bigot? Yes, I believe that I have.”

“That’s not all you’re planning to do.”

A new suspicion gripped Draco, and his haughtiness turned to flat-out fury. “You’ve been speaking to my mother!” he hissed through clenched teeth.

“I have not.”

“She sent you here to plead her case!”

“I have not spoken to Narcissa.”

“Then how do you know about my plans?!”

“I heard them from your own lips.” She smiled wryly at him, seeming to relax in the face of his signature Malfoy temper. “I was at the hearing, among the spectators. I heard what you told the Wizengamot and what you said to your mother afterward. You want to sever the boy’s magical connection to both your families.”

“So what if I do? Can you blame me, after what my parents did?”

“I don’t blame you for being angry or for wanting to keep them out of Felix’s life, but don’t you think that you might be taking your revenge too far?”

“It’s not…!” Draco began, then he shut his mouth with a snap.

Andromeda gave him that sideways smile again. There was far too much understanding in it for Draco’s comfort. “You want to pay them out for hurting you. The human being in you wants a bit of your own back, and the Malfoy in you instinctively goes for the soft underbelly. I don’t fault you for that. But is Felix the best weapon to use? And what price must he pay for your wounded pride?”

“ _Pride?!_ ” Draco blurted out.

Before he could say more, Andromeda lifted a hand to silence him and said, “I’m sorry. That was unfair. Lucius and Narcissa did something unconscionable and injured you in ways that I cannot fathom. I _am_ sorry, Nephew, for my hasty words and for my sister’s actions.”

Draco subsided into his seat, nodding curt acceptance of her apology. He crossed his arms over his chest, shielding himself from her pity and from whatever assault she was about to launch, secure in the knowledge that his anger and his Malfoy stubbornness would keep him from wavering.

“You have every right to lash out at your parents on your own behalf,” she went on in a softer tone, “but Felix bears no guilt for what they did to you. He is innocent, and he is precious. More precious, I think, because you never dreamt of fathering him and will have no other child to follow him.”

Draco shifted uncomfortably and spoke without meeting her eyes. “I do not blame my son for how he was conceived or regret that he was born. But I will _never_ forgive my parents for what they did! And I will do everything in my power to see that nothing like that ever happens to Bob!”

“And to protect him, you will cut him off from his family?”

“As long as he’s part of the family, in the line of succession, he’s vulnerable to them. If I break the line of succession, then he’s free! Free to be whoever and whatever he wants to be!”

“Except a Malfoy. Or a Black.”

Draco glared at her. “He’ll be a _Potter_.”

She sighed. “Draco, I was cast out of my family when was barely of age because I chose to marry a Muggle-born wizard. I raised my daughter in a close, loving family, with the best of fathers, and gave her the values that carried her through her life and to her death—her brave, honorable death, fighting the Darkness. I have never regretted those choices or once wished that I had taken another path.

“What I _have_ wished—what I _do_ wish still—is that ’Dora had been given the chance to know my family. And that her son had the right to call himself a Black.”

Draco’s eyes narrowed. “Is that what this is about? Teddy?”

“In a way…”

“If you want him accepted back into the family, so that he can inherit the family magic, just say so! I’ve got Hermione Granger working on a way to cut Bob out, and I’m sure she could find a way to put Teddy back in while she’s at it.”

“No. That isn’t necessary.”

“Because the Magical Inheritance is rubbish, and you know it!”

“Actually, I know nothing about it. Thanks to the order of my birth, my female sex, and my family’s habit of disowning the people who disappoint them, I’d never heard of it until Narcissa brought it up at the hearing. I wasn’t thinking about the Magical Inheritance, specifically, or about Teddy’s place in the line of succession. I was thinking of what it means to my grandson that he has Black blood flowing in his veins, generations of family magic and history behind him, and no right to claim it. No right even to call himself a Black.”

“He’s better off that way,” Draco said sullenly.

“Is he? I wonder. I often wonder how ’Dora might have felt, if she’d ever had the chance to meet her Black relatives on an equal footing.”

“From what I know of Nymphadora, she wanted nothing to do with any of them. She was a Tonks and proud of it, a half-blood and proud of it, and she _died_ to stop people like your sister from destroying our world!”

“True. But that is largely my fault, and it is one of the deepest regrets of my life.”

Draco just shook his head, at a loss for words.

“And that is what I hope to spare you, Nephew. That regret. You are doing what my parents did to ’Dora, taking away your child’s right to choose, and putting yourself in my place whether you realize it or not.”

“It’s not the same. I’m not taking anything from my son. He’ll still have a family…”

“But not the family he was born to,” she cut in firmly, “and why? Is he truly at risk? Think about it, Draco. _Think!_ What can your parents do to him, now that the Wizengamot has ruled in your favor? They are legally bound not to approach him without your express permission. They have no influence over how he is raised, no part in his life except what you allow them. You could wait until he’s older, close to full adulthood and better acquainted with our world, then let him decide what he wants to do about his Magical Inheritance. Perhaps, by then, your parents will have accepted the realities of the situation and agreed to let him choose his own path. Perhaps he’ll happily choose a path that satisfies them, as well as him. For all you know, your little Bob may grow up to father a brood of happy, healthy, pureblood children in the best traditions of the Black, Malfoy and Potter families!”

“Or he may be bent as a bloody coat hanger, like his father,” Draco put in sourly.

Andromeda shrugged slightly and smiled. “Then he will have you and Harry to rely on.”

Draco huffed at that and looked away, his cheeks darkening.

“Please, just think about what I’ve said. Consider carefully before you do something you can’t take back.”

He cut her a glowering look. “Wouldn’t you rather that Bob turn out more like Teddy than like me?”

“Don’t hold yourself so cheaply, Nephew. In your own colorful way, you are the best of two great and powerful families. And you will be an excellent role model for your son, whether he turns out to be the patriarch of a wizarding dynasty, bent as a coat hanger, or anything in between.”

Draco’s flush deepened, but he held his aunt’s gaze and mustered an embarrassed smile.

“Will you take some time to think? Please?”

He gave a jerky nod. “I will.”

Andromeda smiled at that—another wide, warm smile that reminded Draco powerfully of his mother in the bright days before Voldemort’s return—and got to her feet. “Thank you. I’ll say goodbye, then, and let you get back to your cleaning. Have you tried the _Purificus_ charm? I always found it helpful for nappies…”

She paused beside the bassinet, Draco hovering at her shoulder, and bent over it to smile down at the baby. He was awake, but too well-fed and content to fuss, and his half-blind eyes tracked the movement of her hand sluggishly, as she reached down to stroke his down of silver-gilt hair.

“My, what a lovely boy you are. Felix, indeed.”

Draco pretended to scowl at her, and she chuckled.

“You’ll never make Bob stick, no matter how hard you try.”

“Probably not, but never let it be said that a Malfoy went down without a fight.”

She touched Draco’s cheek lightly with a long, white hand. “I’m glad that you still think of yourself as a Malfoy. Goodbye, Draco, and thank you. Give my best to Harry.”

With that, she was gone and Draco was left alone to think.

*** *** ***

“Don’t let her get to you,” was Harry’s maddeningly cool response to the news of Andromeda’s visit. “It’s none of her business, anyway.”

“So, you think I should still do it? Cut Bob out of the inheritance?”

Draco was pacing madly around the kitchen, and as he thought of Bob, he cast an instinctive glance up at the ceiling, at the nursery where his son slept in blissful ignorance of the furor surrounding him.

“I think you should do whatever the fuck you want,” Harry said reasonably, “as long as it includes marrying me and letting me adopt your son.”

Draco gave a snort of laughter. Harry caught his arm as he strode by, pulling him into his embrace, and Draco came to him willingly.

“If I have you two, I don’t honestly give a fuck about the rest of it.”

“What if giving Bob your name breaks the line of succession?”

Harry shrugged. “Would it be such a bad thing, if he was a Potter in every way? Even magically?”

“It would be brilliant.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

Draco growled in frustration and tried to pull out of Harry’s arms. Harry didn’t let him go.

“But what if Andromeda’s right?” he demanded, glaring a challenge up at his lover’s unruffled face. “What if I regret cutting him off from my family and it’s too late to do anything about it?!”

Harry gave him an Auror look—the kind that irritated the fuck out of him, even as it made him achingly hard—and said, “Then you have to decide what you’ll regret more. Cutting Felix off from _your_ family, or giving up on _ours_.”

Draco’s mouth dropped open in shock. “That’s not… I didn’t mean…”

“No? We don’t know what will happen to Felix’s place in the Malfoy-Black succession when he becomes a Potter. Hermione says it’ll take months, maybe years, to work out all the details and in the end, she may find that he can’t be a Potter and still inherit magic from the Blacks or Malfoys. So, what matters to you more? Protecting his Magical Inheritance or making him a part of our family? And will you still marry me, if we can’t…”

“Shut it, Potter,” Draco snapped, stretching up to fasten his lips to the other man’s. He kissed Harry hard, crushing their mouths together, and knotted his fingers in his hair to pull him still closer. When he backed off, they were both breathing hard, their bodies straining together, their cocks hard between them.

“I’m marrying you,” Draco said emphatically. “You’re adopting Bob. We’re going to be the Potter Family, and the rest of it…”

“Will all work out,” Harry finished for him, his voice now soft and loving, turning Draco’s bones to water. “You and me together, we’ll give our son whatever he needs.”

He stroked Draco’s hair away from his face, gave him a playful kiss, and turned to press him back into the wall.

“And _I_ …” His knee pushed between Draco’s legs, parting them. “Will give _you_ …” His thigh rubbed tantalizingly against Draco’s swollen crotch. “Everything you can stand…”

“Oh, fuck!” Draco gasped, his entire body shuddering at the intimate contact.

“You look so beautiful, spread out against my wall,” Harry murmured teasingly.

“You and your sodding walls, Potter.”

“I don’t think I’ve had you against this one, yet.”

“Nngh… no…” Draco panted, even as he leaned back against the rough, plastered surface and thrust his hips forward, surrendering to the support of the wall and Harry’s hands.

This was the only piece of empty wall in the kitchen and—oddly, considering Potter’s predilections—the only surface in the room on which he had not taken Draco at least once. Cooking, eating, drinking tea, feeding the menagerie, these things all took place in the big kitchen, and they all seemed to excite Potter’s libido (not just Potter’s, really), so Draco spent the majority of his time in this room with his pants on the floor and Potter’s cock up his arse. That made it his second-favorite room in the house. And it really was a crying shame, not to say a disgrace, that this lovely piece of wall in this marvelous room had gone unappreciated for so long.

“What… mmh! What are you going to d- do about it?” he asked, barely able to speak coherently with Harry rutting up against him and sucking bruises down his throat.

“Right a terrible wrong,” Harry muttered.

Draco’s trousers and pants abruptly vanished, and he knew exactly what was coming. He began to scrabble for a handhold on the wall, a way to brace himself, but all he found was the doorjamb to his right. On the other side, he could only flatten his palm agains the plaster and hope for the best before Harry was driving furiously into him, sending his body skidding up the wall with every stroke.

“F-fuck! Potter!” he groaned.

Another thrust forced a gasp of pain from him, but that only drove his lover on faster and harder. Draco could feel the plaster digging into his back, catching at his shirt and hair, scraping his skin. It was brutal. It was _brilliant!_ He never wanted it to end. But the pain and heat were pooling together in his guts, rising in a molten tide, making him shiver and moan with want, ready to erupt the moment Harry touched him. And then a rough whisper brushed his ear.

“Come for me, my beauty.” Potter heaved up against him, burying himself to the hilt, and urged, “Come on…”

Draco came in a hot, panting, gasping rush, emptying himself across both their stomachs, in the same instant that Harry came deep inside him. They clung together, shaking and gasping, too spent to do more than lean against the wall and breathe, until finally Harry mustered the strength to find Draco’s mouth with his. It was a sloppy, clumsy kiss, but it tasted sweet on Draco’s swollen lips. He groaned a ragged laugh into Harry’s open mouth and tilted his head to find a better angle.

“Mmmm,” he sighed in delight, when Harry’s tongue slid against his. “Ssoo gnngh…”

Harry pulled back very slightly. “What was that?”

“You taste so good.” Draco nipped at his lips. “You make me hungry.”

“For what?” Harry asked, a twinkle in his eyes.

“More of you… as much of you as I can get…”

“You get all of me, Draco. Always. You know that.”

“And yet, somehow, it’s never enough.”

“Well.” He braced his hands to either side of Draco’s head and leaned back to eye him laughingly. “I’ll have to see what I can do about that.”

Draco loosened his legs from around Harry’s hips and let his feet fall to the floor, giving a small whimper of disappointment as this drew Harry’s softening cock out of his arse. Leaning into his lover’s taller body, he wrapped both arms around his waist. Then he kissed Harry’s throat, just below his jaw.

“Do you still wish you could get me up the duff?” he murmured, lips moving against warm, damp skin.

“More than ever.”

“Hm. Is that why you’ve been all over me lately? You’re hoping that if you want it badly enough, and fuck me hard enough, it’ll happen?”

“What if I am? Is that a problem?”

Draco chuckled, nipped at Harry’s throat and pressed his crotch to his thigh. He was still half-hard and already stirring again at Harry’s closeness. Potter was better than an Engorgement charm.

“It’s mental, but it’s not a problem. In fact…” He nipped again, then leaned back to gaze into Harry’s eyes. “It might even work. You are Harry Potter, after all, the most powerful wizard alive. If anyone can wish a baby into being, it’s you.” He cocked a silver-blond eyebrow. “Care to give it another try?”

“You…” Harry began, then he broke off, laughed aloud, and caught Draco up in his arms, lifting him clear off his feet. Turning for the table that stood in the middle of the room, hereached it in two strides and dropped Draco on its top. “You’re going to regret saying that!”

“I sincerely doubt it,” Draco taunted, laughing with Harry as the larger man turned him onto his stomach and positioned him with his hips bent sharply over the edge of the table. “Go on, Potter, try! Mount me like a bull and fuck me ’til it takes! I dare you!”

“Slag!”

Draco didn’t usually like being taken from behind. He preferred to see his lover’s face while he fucked. But this was something different. Something special. He had guessed it when Harry jumped him the instant they returned from the hearing—sensed something new and powerfully erotic in the way he claimed Draco’s body—and over the last few days that guess had hardened into a certainty. Harry had only confirmed it. And while Draco didn’t believe that any amount of wishing would allow his body to conceive a child, even for the invincible Harry Potter, he relished the explosive force, the fierce determination in his lover. It drove him mad with desire, pitched him into orgasm just anticipating where it would go, kept him trembling and aching for Harry’s touch and dreaming of it in those hours when they were apart.

Draco Malfoy was never going to carry a baby. Not _any man’s_ baby. But he was going to enjoy every hot, sweaty, sticky, brilliant second of trying!

“Come on, Potter!” he gasped, as Harry breached him, “You can do it!”

Harry grunted with the effort as his hips snapped forward again and again, pounding Draco into the table top.

“Harder! Come on… You have to try _harder! Oh, f-fuck…_ ”

This last was wrenched out of him as Harry grabbed his hips and hoisted him half off the table. Draco clung to the wooden surface with desperate fingers, drew his knees up as far as he could to open himself, and swallowed the moans that rose in his throat as Harry pistoned into him with punishing force. When Harry came, groaning and shuddering, spilling come down his thighs, Draco felt a satisfaction that went way beyond sexual release. He didn’t even care if he came himself, so happy was he to feel Harry’s pleasure and triumph filling him, but Harry was having none of that. His hand found Draco’s cock, his hips twisted to change the angle of his thrusts, and in another minute, Draco was crying his name as he spurted messily all over the table and floor.

When it was all over, Harry pulled out and helped Draco up to sit on the edge of the table. Stepping between his spread knees, Harry pulled him against his chest and cradled his head. Draco sighed, closed his eyes, inhaled the scents of sweat, sex and Harry Potter. It made him giddy.

“Still hungry?” Harry asked, his voice rumbling in his chest where Draco’s head lay.

“Ravenous,” was the murmured, sated reply.

“For me or for food?”

“Both.” Draco lifted his head with an effort and smiled wistfully up at his lover. “But I need food or I won’t last through another round with you.”

“Food it is, then.” Harry’s fingers sank into Draco’s hair, supporting his head, holding him as if he were infinitely precious. His thumb brushed Draco’s bruised lips tenderly. “I think you deserve a night out on the town. A reward for surviving yet another attempt by your family to brainwash you.”

“Aren’t you being a little hard on Andromeda?”

“Are you saying that you _don’t_ deserve a night out?”

“No.” Draco grinned. “I definitely do.”

“Hmm.” Harry bent to kiss him, and Draco opened his mouth, shamelessly begging for more. “Behave or you won’t get fed.”

“Where are my clothes?” Pulling away from Harry’s touch, Draco looked around the kitchen for some sign of his trousers. “It’s hard to behave when I’m sitting here in my skin, with you between my legs.” He lifted a taunting eyebrow. “It gives me entirely the wrong sort of ideas.”

“I was a little distracted when I Vanished them, so I don’t know where they ended up,” Harry replied. “Go put on something nice, like those leather trousers of Zabini’s…”

“Now who’s not behaving?” Draco chided. He planted a bare foot on Harry’s midriff and pushed him firmly back so that he could get his feet on the floor. Then he slid away from the other man’s reaching hands. “You know those trousers are deadly. We’ll never make it out the door!”

“Go put them on, and just see how good I can be. And get Felix dressed for an outing.”

“Where exactly are we going?”

“Up to the High Street. It’s a beautiful evening for a stroll, and there are half a dozen good restaurants within a mile of here. You pick one.”

“I need meat.” He kissed Harry, biting at his lip as he pulled away. “And wine, especially if I’m going to survive a meal with you fondling my leather trousers under the table.”

“Which I absolutely will be doing.”

“I’m sure.” Draco headed for the door, Harry trailing after him. “You have the manners of a drunken goblin and self control of a Veela in heat, Potter.”

“Something you’d know all about, Malfoy…”

* * *

Nearly an hour later—after Draco had hit Potter with two Stinging hexes to encourage him to keep his hands to himself—the little family was dressed and ready to go. Draco insisted that his elegant, full-sleeved, lace-trimmed shirt and leather trousers were entirely unsuited to such menial tasks as carrying babies, so Harry did the honors, which suited them both just fine. Armed with a bag of bottles and nappies, a sleeping baby, and wallet full of Muggle cash, Harry finally swept them out the door.

It was a gorgeous Summer evening, and Draco paused on the stoop to savor it before spelling the door shut and sashaying down the front steps in his best arrogant Malfoy style. Harry waited for him on the pavement, grinning in appreciation, and Draco struck a pose to give him the full effect of the leather trousers before taking the last step. He was just reaching to slip his hand into the crook of Harry’s free elbow, when something struck him in the back, throwing him forward to his knees.

“What the…” he gasped.

“Draco!” Harry shouted, making a belated snatch for his arm.

“Get the baby!” a strange voice snarled. “I’ll take care of Malfoy!”

Draco looked up to see a man towering over him, wand pointed at his head, and another closing in on Harry.

“Don’t make any trouble now, Potter,” the second man said. “We don’t want to hurt you.”

Harry gave a hard, humorless laugh at that. Then magic burst out of him, half blinding Draco and throwing his attacker away like a leaf in a high wind. Before Draco’s head stopped ringing, he was on his feet and moving.

“Hold it, Malfoy!” the first man yelled. “Don’t do anything stupid!”

But Draco was beyond reason or caution. He was in an instinctive place of rage and terror, driven there by the man’s first words, intent only on reaching Bob at any cost. He was up like a shot, flinging himself at Harry and the baby in his arms. He only distantly heard the man’s shouted warning, or Harry’s challenge, or the other attacker’s curses.

Then the first man bellowed, “No! Not him…!” and a spell hit Draco square in the back.

His mind spun out into darkness.

 

**_To be continued…_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reviews and kudos are much appreciated!!


	8. Fluffy Yellow Ducklings and Crocodile Tears

 

He came back slowly, swimming up through a comfortable soup of pain potions and sleep, ’til he surfaced into wakefulness. It wasn’t pleasant. He instantly regretted it. He wanted to sink back down into his warm, dark pool, but Harry was beside him and he couldn’t leave. He had known Harry was there before he came fully awake, had known it without seeing his face or hearing his voice, without recognizing the warm hand on his or the sheltering presence beside him. He simply knew, as he knew he needed to breathe to go on living.

The voice reached him now, as the hand tightened on his. Because, of course, Harry knew that he was awake before he’d given any outward sign.

“Open your eyes, Draco. Come on, you can do it.”

He obeyed, dragging his lids up over eyes coated with sand and squinting blearily at the face floating above him. It was Harry, a smile warming his face and crinkling the corners of his exhausted eyes, a halo of candlelit crystal bubbled glowing behind his head.

Draco almost giggled at the thought—Harry Fucking Potter with a halo—then he remembered where he’d seen bubbles like that before. St. Mungo’s. He had to be in St. Mungo’s because only St. Mungo’s was daft enough to light the wards with candles in floating bubbles.

He wasn’t dead, then, and Harry wasn’t an angel. He was in fucking hospital. He _hated_ fucking hospital—all those hours and days sitting at Harry’s bedside while he recovered from some near-suicidal act of bravery…

“Hey,” Harry said softly, his smile widening. “Welcome back.”

“Potter.” His throat had even more sand in it than his eyes, but he needed to make it work. Needed to tell Potter something. No, _ask_ him something. Maybe he could remember what, if only his skull weren’t full of aspic…

“Always such a stunning grasp of the obvious,” Potter said, stealing one of Draco’s caustic lines, if not the tone that rightly went with it. He lifted their clasped hands and dropped a kiss on Draco’s knuckles.

“What hap…” Then it hit him. The memory. And he screamed, “ _BOB!!_ ”

He tried to move, to roll out of the bed, to grab for his wand, but pain howled through his body and his limbs refused to work. He couldn’t move! His son was in danger and he couldn’t fucking _move!_

“Where is he?!” he sobbed, fighting his pain and the effects of the potions, fighting Harry’s hands now gripping his shoulders. “Where’s Bob?! What did they do to him?!”

“Nothing!”

“ _Bob!_ ”

“Calm down! Bob is right here! Draco… No, shh…” Harry lifted him and wrapped strong arms around his torso, simultaneously comforting and restraining him, and Draco was too weak, too drugged to break free. Harry began to rock, trying to soothe him, but Draco would have none of it.

“Where’s Bob?! I want him! I want- want him… where is he?!”

“He’s _fine._ He’s with Hermione.”

“ _What?!_ She c-can’t protect him! You should be with him! You should…

“He’s perfectly safe, Draco. He’s here on the ward, right next door. I just asked Hermione to look after him ’til you woke up.”

“I want him! I want to see him!”

Draco was crying now, though he couldn’t fathom why. His mouth, his body, his emotions had all got away from him. He was losing his mind, along with all control of himself, and without Bob, he’d never find his way back.

“ _I want Bob!_ ” he wailed, even as Harry laid him back down on the pillow, hushing him softly and petting his hair.

“I’ll send for him. Just calm down.”

Draco collapsed into the mattress, curling onto his side and huddling into himself. Every part of him hurt and he was so weak that some disinterested part of him wondered how he had the strength to shed tears. But he kept his eyes open and followed Harry’s movements, as the other man drew his wand. A flick of his wrist, a silent spell, and silver mist erupted from the wand’s tip.

“Tell Hermione to bring the baby,” Harry said to the stag that coalesced from the mist.

It lowered its proud head once, then turned and leapt through the opposite wall. Harry turned back to Draco, petting his hair again and stroking the tears from his cheek with his thumb.

“She’ll be right here. Don’t worry. The baby’s fine.”

“What happened?” Draco rasped out. “How did you stop them?”

“Don’t worry about that, now. We’re all safe and the kidnappers are in Auror custody. They won’t come for us again.”

“Where’s Granger?” he asked fretfully.

Before Harry could answer, the door cracked open and Granger’s familiar bushy head poked through it.

“Harry?” she called hesitantly. Then her eyes fell on Draco and brightened with relief. “Draco! Oh, my dear, you’re awake!”

“Bob,” he demanded in his rough whisper.

She hurried over to the bed, a blue bundle in her arms, and held it out to him.

Draco couldn’t get his hands to work well enough to take the baby from her. All he managed was to brush the blanket with clumsy fingers. But Granger, bless her, understood and settled the little body on the mattress beside him. Then she guided Draco’s hand to rest on it.

Bob wriggled and fussed, arms flailing, clearly upset at being disturbed, but Draco ignored his fit of temper. He slid his hand up to clasp the tiny, white-blond head and tucked the baby in closer to his ribs, murmuring tearfully, “My Bob. My baby. It’s all right, now, you’re safe.”

Then he looked at the plain, blue blanket swaddling the baby, and a fresh tide of totally irrational emotion rose in him. Tears of outrage sprang to his eyes. He lifted them to glare at Potter and Granger in something like panic.

“Where are his ducklings?! He needs his ducklings! What have done with them?! I can’t believe you would…”

“Draco, stop it.” Harry bent over him, holding his head, forcing him to look into those impossible green eyes. “Calm down. It’s only a blanket.”

“I’ll get it,” Granger said. She scurried out of the room, leaving Harry to deal with Draco’s hysterics and the fussing baby.

“He needs his fluffy yellow ducklings! He won’t sleep without them! He w- won’t… Bloody _hell_ , Potter!”

Hot tears coursed down Draco’s cheeks and his body shook with sobs he didn’t understand. It hurt. It frightened him. He was losing his grip, going round the twist, sobbing like a bally idiot over a baby blanket!

“What’s ha- _happened_ to me?!”

Harry scooped him up in his arms and held him close, rocking again and speaking softly into Draco’s tangled hair. “You were hit with a nasty curse. We thought we might lose you. But it’s okay, now. You’re okay. It’s just all the potions making you wonky.”

“What did it do? The curse?”

“I don’t want to talk about that, now. I want to be glad you’re recovering and that Bob is safe.”

“You c…” Draco broke off to swallow the tears in his throat, “…called him Bob…”

“Only to make you smile,” Harry taunted gently. “Don’t get used to it.”

“I thought they’d taken him,” Draco whispered, his voice small and terrified. Then, more fretfully, “Where’s Granger with his ducklings?”

“Right here,” she said from the doorway.

She carried Bob’s bag over to the bed and set it on the floor. Then, after a quick rummage through it, she pulled out the blanket covered in fluffy yellow ducklings. Harry helped Draco to lie back down on his side, Bob tucked in close to him, then he and Granger swapped the ducklings for the blue blanket that had so offended Draco. He watched, eyes heavy with pain and clogged with tears, as Harry framed the little face in folds of white flannel dotted with yellow.

Bob quieted almost at once. He lay still, staring up at Draco with those strange, half-blind, wrong-sort-of-grey eyes and almost smiling. Draco knew, of course, that babies at this age couldn’t smile, but he was sure that Bob was trying. His darling little Bob. His perfect Malfoy prince. His very own son, who was all the more precious because Draco had never dreamt of fathering him and because none would follow…

Who had said those words to him? Did it matter? He had his Bob safe in his arms and he loved him so impossibly. So completely. So _terribly_. Tears started in his eyes again, so he closed them and nuzzled his face into the soft ducklings blanket.

Fingers lifted his hand from Bob’s tummy. He opened his eyes and raised his head to find Granger tucking a plush, stuffed duckling under his hand and against Bob’s chest. She smiled when Draco looked up at her.

“I saw that in a shop and thought of Felix.”

“Bob,” he mumbled, with no bite in it, as he closed his eyes, buried his face in the blanket again, and pulled both baby and duckling plushy close. He was done crying, and even the pain wasn’t so bad when he lay like this with the smell of flannel, clean baby and formula filling his head.

Potter’s hand stroked his hair. “You rest, love. I’m going to talk to the Aurors, now that you’re awake and feeling better. Hermione, will you stay with him?”

“Of course.”

“I won’t be long.”

 

While Harry was gone, a healer came in to check on Draco. It was one he knew—a nice bloke called Trevor Something—and his presence told Draco where exactly he was. The Red Ward, so named for the distinctive color of an Auror’s robes, was used exclusively to treat injured Aurors and their prisoners, and was cut off from the general hospital population by a staggering array of spells, locks and armed guards. Draco knew the ward all too well, it being where Potter always landed after getting blasted out of his socks by some desperate felon. He was on a first-name basis with the staff and had a friendly rapport with those willing to overlook the Mark on his arm.

Trevor was one of the good ones. Draco couldn’t quite muster a smile at his greeting, but he answered his questions without snark and followed his instructions without argument. He even let Granger take Bob for a moment, while Trevor cast some diagnostic spells.

“You’re doing well, Malfoy. You gave us quite a scare, but the damage is healing and you should fully recover.”

“What damage?” Draco asked in his sandpaper voice.

“The curse hit you rather like a concussive blast. It broke your bones, bruised and crushed some of your internal organs, rattled your brain around in your skull. If Potter had been any slower getting you here, you wouldn’t have made it.”

“I feel like I’ve been hit by the Hogwarts Express.”

“Yes, that’s about right. But don’t worry, we make a career out of piecing together Aurors who walk in front of nasty spells. We’re quite good at it. And while this curse was powerful, it wasn’t very subtle, so it didn’t present any real challenge for us. Strictly physical injuries; no lingering magic.”

“What about Bob?” Draco asked, fear coiling in his guts. “Was he hurt?”

“The baby?” Trevor asked. His eyes cut over to Granger and his brows rose. “No, he wasn’t touched. Potter took out your attackers with one—very impressive—spell and they never got close to him.”

“He does that,” Draco mumbled, his eyes growing heavy and his chest aching with Bob’s absence. “Impressive spells.”

“He is Harry Potter,” Trevor said with a twinkle in his eyes that made Draco want to smile. Except that he was exhausted and in pain and his face wouldn’t cooperate.

“I think you should rest now, Draco,” Granger said from close beside him.

“Mm. Bob.” He tried to lift his arms but couldn’t.

“Can he have the baby back?” she asked the healer.

“Of course. But I’d stay close. He’s going to go out like a snuffed candle any minute.”

“I will. Here you are, Malfoy. Here’s Felix.”

Again, Draco tried to move, tried to twist onto his side to cuddle the baby or lift his hands to take him, but again, he failed. Granger tutted at him and laid the baby on his chest. Then she rested Draco’s hands on him, so he could feel the little body breathing, and pulled the blanket up over both of them. Draco sighed his gratitude.

“So, is it Bob or Felix?” he heard Trevor ask, as he and Granger moved away from the bed.

“That depends on who you ask. His legal name is Felix, and we’re wearing Malfoy down…”

“Nngh… not…” Draco mumbled in protest.

Granger laughed. “Honestly.” Then, to Trevor, “Does that baby look like a Bob to you?”

Draco didn’t hear the rest. He was out before they reached the door.

 

* * *

 

He had no idea how long he slept, only that it wasn’t long enough. Harry’s return dragged him back to consciousness entirely against his will, but once awake, he couldn’t ignore the news his lover brought.

“Did you say my _mother?_ ” he demanded, words slurring drunkenly. His head pounded so that he couldn’t think straight, and Potter’s voice only made it worse. Or maybe it was thoughts of his mother that hurt him so fiercely.

“She’s in the lobby. She wants to see you.”

Bloody buggering fuck. His mother. He seriously couldn’t deal with her right now.

“How…” Draco broke off, struggling for focus and finding only more confusion. “How does she even know I’m here?”

“I have no idea, but I intend to find out. _We_ certainly didn’t tell her. Do you want to see her? You don’t have to.”

Draco stared up at his frowning face, waiting for his brain to quit wallowing and start thinking again. Eventually, he figured out what had Harry so worried. He was afraid of Narcissa Black Malfoy. But why?

“You think she did this,” he stated. Surprisingly, his voice didn’t shake.

“Don’t you?”

“I…”

“It’s all right, love. You don’t have to answer that. Just know that I’m going to find out who sent those men after Felix, and I’m going to punish them. Whoever they are. In the meantime, you can see your mum if you want to, but I won’t let her bring her wand onto the ward and I’ll put a Containment spell around her to keep her from using magic.”

“Her voice is her most powerful magic.”

“We’re both prepared for that.” He reached out to stroke Bob’s head, then to touch Draco’s cheek. “It’s up to you. Do you want to see her?”

Draco hesitated, licked his cracked lips, then whispered, “Yes.”

With a grim nod, Harry turned and strode out of the room, and before the door had closed behind him, Draco was regretting his decision.

 

* * *

 

Harry found Draco’s mother just outside the doors to the ward, standing in frigid silence before a cringing, whey-faced guard. The man was at least a foot taller and two feet wider than Narcissa Malfoy, but he was cowering like a house-elf under her glare. At Harry’s timely arrival, he gave a choke of relief and nearly scuttled to one side, leaving the Savior to confront the Gorgon alone.

“Mr. Potter,” she said, inclining her head regally.

“Mrs. Malfoy,” Harry said through his teeth.

“Tell these creatures to let me through those doors.”

“I don’t think so.”

She opened her mouth to deliver a blistering retort, but Harry forestalled her by grabbing her arm and marching her down the hallway, out of earshot of the guards.

“Are you mad? Get your hands off me!” she spluttered. “I _insist_ that you take me to my son!”

“Shut it.” Harry pushed open an unmarked door and found a storeroom behind it. “This’ll do.”

“It most certainly will _not!_ Get… How dare… Un _hand_ me, Potter!”

He gave her a sharp shove into the cluttered space, followed her, and whipped the door shut at his back. A wordless, wandless spell sealed the door. Another sent a ball of bluish light drifting up toward the ceiling.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” Narcissa demanded.

“Having a private conversation with my future mother-in-law.” He paused, cocked his head, then mused, “That’s why you did it, isn’t it? You heard about the wedding and knew you were running out of time, so you decided to go for broke.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“It’s a Muggle saying. It means you were willing to risk everything.”

“I know _that._ I’m not a _complete_ imbecile. I meant that I don’t kn…” She stalled out, the digression into Muggle idioms taking the wind out of her sails—or the lift out of her broom, more properly. With a delicate flush now staining her cheeks, she tried again. “I demand to see Draco. I’m his mother and I have a right to see him.”

“Actually, you have fuck-all to do with him anymore.”

Her flush deepened. “It must by your much-prized Muggle upbringing that makes you so uniformly charming.”

“Oh, you can’t blame my Muggle family for my foul language. I learned it from Draco. He’s got a mouth like a Marseilles dock worker—when he’s using it for talking, that is.”

She looked as if her face might actually catch fire, and Harry knew a moment of petty triumph. It always felt good to get under Narcissa’s skin, even when he wasn’t angry enough to blast her out of her Italian leather shoes.

“If I have no rights where Draco is concerned, then you have less than none,” she countered. “You may warm his bed and mirror his bad habits, but you are not yet his family, Potter. _I_ am his mother…”

“And I’m the Auror who saved his life,” Harry returned, his voice silky with malice, “which makes me the lead investigator on the case and responsible for his safety. Save your breath, Narcissa. You won’t win a verbal duel with me, or any sort of duel, as I think you know. You must have learned that, if nothing else, from tonight’s disaster.”

“I don’t know…”

“ _Save it._ ” He took a moment to get his temper under control again, then said, “Your hired wands tried to overpower me and failed. Your son took a curse meant for me—a curse you paid for—and that is the _very last time_ you will ever hurt him! I promise you that!”

She gazed up at him, wide-eyed and, for once, unguarded. “How bad is it? Will he recover?”

“Are you pretending that you care?”

Tears began to slip down her cheeks. “You’re cruel. How can Draco love such a cruel man?”

“You trained him well,” Harry retorted sourly. “Now, if you’re done with the crocodile tears, let’s get a few things straight.”

She glared furiously at him but wisely kept her mouth shut.

“Draco wants to see you, and unfortunately, I can never say no to the git. So you’re going in there with me, but you won’t take your wand, you won’t use magic—I’ll see to that—and you won’t be alone with him. If, at any time, I think you pose a threat to him, I’ll remove you. By force, if necessary.”

“You have no…!”

“Those are my terms. Take them or leave them _._ ” He waited for her to clamp her lips shut again and went on, “This is your chance to play the devoted mother. You can sit beside him and cry over him and tell him how precious he is to you. And maybe, if you’re really lucky, he’ll forget what you are for a few minutes, but _I won’t_ , Narcissa. Don’t ever think I will. And I’ll be right beside him every second, _protecting_ him and _watching_ you. Got it?”

She hesitated, then tilted her chin up and gave a curt nod.

“All right, then.” He held out his hand. “Let’s have your wand.”

 

* * *

 

While they waited for Harry to return, Granger helped Draco sit up, conjured extra pillows to support him, and spelled his hair into some kind of order. Then she tucked Bob into the blankets to his right, hidden from the doorway by his body. She poured Draco a dose of pain potion, hovering over him as he drank, and had just Vanished the empty cup when the door swung open.

Three people trooped in. Harry, looking even grimmer than when he’d left, with a mulish set to his chin and a fire in his eyes that would have frightened Draco, if he didn’t know all that anger was brewing on his behalf. Weasley, Aurored up and full of brisk authority. Narcissa, as beautiful and graceful as ever but looking almost small between the two stern Aurors.

His mother. _Small?_

Draco felt a wave of vertigo hit him and the room swam out of focus. For a terrible moment, he wanted nothing more in this life than to feel her arms around him and hear her soft, beguiling voice whisper love in his ear. Then he remembered why he was here. His resolve stiffened. He set his teeth and raised his eyes to meet hers.

There were tears in them. _Bloody buggering fuck!_

“Draco!” She surged up to the bed, her hands stretched out, her lips trembling just enough to be moving but not enough to be vulgar. “My darling boy!”

“Hello, Mother,” he said. It didn’t come out sounding nearly as aloof or composed as he would’ve liked.

At her move toward him, Weasley and Potter also closed in. Weasley ranged himself at the foot of the bed, while Potter stayed at Narcissa’s elbow. With Granger still standing close on his right, Draco was surrounded by defenders. He wished he took more comfort from that, but even the presence of the Chosen One couldn’t armor him effectively against his mother’s tears.

She took his hand, pressing a kiss to the back, then cradling it beneath her chin. Her free hand dropped to stroke his hair. “Thank goodness you’re alive. When I heard…”

“How did you hear, Mother?” Draco cut in, before her tears and caresses completely undid him.

Her hand fell still. “Does it matter? One of the house-elves told me. She was out running errands…”

“Spying on me, you mean?”

“Delivering a message to Grimmauld Place,” Narcissa said haughtily. “A request for a meeting with you and your partner, to discuss our grandson.”

Draco’s right hand slipped down beside him to rest on Bob’s softly-breathing body. He was asleep again, thank Merlin, and quiet enough that Narcissa had not noticed his presence. The feel of him settled Draco. Grounded him. Allowed him to relax and think, in spite of the blurring effect of the pain potion.

“I’m afraid we won’t be attending any family meetings in the near future. We are otherwise engaged.”

Narcissa folded herself into the chair that stood at his shoulder, still nursing his hand against her cheek and gazing at him with doleful, tear-bright eyes. “All of that can wait until you’re feeling better. Your health is all that matters to us, Draco.”

“Us?” Draco managed to raise an eyebrow at her, though he couldn’t produce his usual cutting sneer to go with it. “Do you include Father in that?”

“Of course.”

“Couldn’t be arsed to come see me, though, could he?” Draco grumbled, dropping his superior manner, his cut-glass accent, and his taunting eyebrow all at once. His head fell back against the pillow and his eyes drifted closed, but not before he caught his mother’s shifty look.

Something was up with Lucius. No surprise there.

“Your father will come visit as soon as he returns.”

Draco cracked an eye open. “Returns from where?”

“Your cousin Rihard asked for his help with some financial matters. It seemed urgent, so he portkeyed over this morning.”

“Whose this Cousin Rihard?” Harry asked, breaking in on the conversation with his usual blithe disregard for etiquette. “Another Malfoy? Is Lucius looking for a new heir?”

Draco smiled slightly at the hopeful gleam in his lover’s eye. “Sorry, Potter. Not a Malfoy. Not really a cousin, either, unless you go back about seven generations.”

Narcissa said, in her most frigid tones, “Rihard Kralj is a third cousin, twice removed, through the distaff side of Lucius’ grandfather’s second marriage. He is not a possible Malfoy heir. Neither is my husband’s visit to him in any way related to the family inheritance.”

Draco wished he had enough mental wherewithal to do a spot of Legilimency because something rang false about his mother’s words, and he knew perfectly well it wasn’t Cousin Rihard’s genealogy. But his head was spinning, his body aching, and the pain potion stuffing his brain with soggy cotton balls, so Legilimency was not an option. He’d have to rely on Potter and Weasley to get to the bottom of it.

“Maybe it’s not related, but it’s bloody convenient,” Harry snapped. “Lucius just happens to be out of the country on the day his son is attacked on the street and his grandson nearly kidnapped? Where, exactly, has he gone?”

His mother’s manner grew, if possible, still more icy. “Rihard owns a villa on the Adriatic Coast of Slovenia.”

Draco heard Granger suck in a breath and cut her a glance from beneath his lashes. She looked like she’d been hit with a full body-bind—eyes popping and jaw locked.

“Lucius is most likely there. I do not know if my owl has reached him yet, but I _do_ know that he will return to England as quickly as possible, once he learns of Draco’s injury.”

“Hmm,” was all Potter had to say to that.

“Now, if you are done interrogating me about my husband’s _perfectly lawful_ activities, I’d like to speak to my son.”

“I’m done. For now.”

“Thank you.”

Narcissa spent the next ten minutes filling Draco’s ears with motherly platitudes and comforting noises. She gushed and soothed and petted and sighed over his wan appearance in a blatant attempt to dull his senses and worm her way back into his good graces. It should have worked. It _usually_ work. But it didn’t this time. Draco wasn’t even sure why, since his first impulse on seeing her tonight had been to crawl into her arms and let her hold him.

Something about the flicker of her eyes at mention of Lucius, or the lie in her voice when she spoke of his trip to Slovenia. Maybe the venom she spewed at Harry—a man she had always pretended to like, for Draco’s benefit, until now. Or maybe the simple fact that he trusted his lover more than he trusted his mother, and _Harry_ didn’t trust _her_. Whatever it was, he couldn’t hear the music in her voice tonight, only the deceit. The thinly-veiled attempt to manipulate him. The gall beneath the honey.

He loved her. He always would. And he would always be vulnerable to her machinations, to some extent, even though he saw through them more clearly than most. He let her twist him round her finger because he loved her and because it gave her the illusion that the beloved boy she had doted on for so many years still existed. Was still _hers_. But the man he was now belonged to someone else, and at least for the moment, Draco was able to see just how different he was from the boy she imagined.

It made him a little queasy listening to her.

Harry must have seen the sickness in his face because he was up out of his chair in an instant, grabbing Narcissa’s arm and urging her up as well. He marched her out of the room, deaf to her protests, and asked Weasley to escort her off the ward. Draco thanked him with a look, then scrunched down in the bed, curling around Bob’s little body and closing his eyes. He was more than ready to sleep. Then he remembered Granger standing there with her eyes bugging out, looking like she’d been turned to stone.

He lifted his head and squinted up at her. “Why did you go all funny when my mother mentioned Slovenia?”

“Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?”

Draco sighed. “Just say it, Granger.”

She rolled her eyes. “The Slovenian High Wizarding Council does not maintain diplomatic relations with our Ministry of Magic.”

Draco waited, head up and eyes wide, waiting. When Granger did not elaborate, he prodded, “So?”

“Sooo,” she chided, “if Lucius succeeded in getting Felix as far as Slovenia…”

“The Ministry couldn’t get him back!” Harry finished for her. “Bloody hell! Sodding Lucius was planning to hide his grandson in Slovenia!”

Draco let his head fall back onto the pillow and pulled Bob closer to his chest. He wasn’t worried. Harry would never let his father take Bob out of the country, and if by some miracle Lucius succeeded, Harry would get him back. With or without the Ministry’s consent. No, it wasn’t fear he felt, but disgust. And a touch of sour amusement.

Trust Lucius to think he could outwit Harry Potter and Hermione Granger! The man was so far out of his league he wasn’t even playing on the same pitch! Stupid sodding bastard.

A hand fell on his hair, brushed it back, stroked it softly.

“You okay?”

“Mm.” Draco cracked open his eyes and twisted his head to find the man standing at his back. He mustered a tired smile. “I’m bloody fantastic, for a man who was hit by a speeding steam engine.”

Harry’s lips twitched. “Is that what they call that curse? _Rapidus Locomotor?_ ”

“Since when do you speak Latin?”

“I spend a lot of time working with spells. I’ve managed to pick up the odd Latin word, here and there.”

“Well, your grammar is shite.”

“You can correct it in the morning.” He bent to kiss Draco. “For now, you need to sleep.”

Draco lifted a hand to touch his face and draw him down into another chaste kiss. When Harry pulled back just a little, he murmured, “You going to arrest my parents?”

“Not yet. We don’t have any evidence and we don’t want to tip off Lucius before he’s back on British soil.”

“I’ll wager you shot your mouth off to my mother, though. Told her exactly what you were thinking about the attack.”

A wry smile tilted Harry’s mouth. “I may have said a thing or two about it, yeah.”

“Then she’s probably getting an owl off to Father as we speak, warning him not to come back. And she’ll be over there with him by morning.”

“We’ll see.”

“Don’t underestimate her, Potter.”

Harry’s smile died. His face hardened. “I won’t.”

Draco just nodded, turned his head back into the pillow, and closed his eyes. He was asleep in seconds.

 

*** *** ***

 

A week after his release from St. Mungo’s, Draco was still technically convalescent and under orders not to exert himself. What this meant in practical terms was that Harry stayed home so they could play with Bob together and shag on every surface in the house not covered in fluffy yellow ducklings. (Yes, Harry was still trying to prove that he could get Draco pregnant if he fucked him long and hard enough, and yes, Draco was still encouraging him.) (No, they had not succeeded— _yet_ , as Harry reminded Draco every time he backed him up against another bed, chair, table, counter, piece of floor or stretch of wall—but Harry was too bloody stubborn to give up on anything he really wanted and Draco was fine with that.) His healer might not approve of so much activity, but Draco did, so he conveniently forgot to mention it when Trevor floo-called to check on him.

After several abortive attempts to lure them over to the Burrow to make wedding plans, Molly Weasley finally turned up at Grimmauld Place. She brought a self-inking quill, an immense roll of parchment, and a host of ideas that sent Draco’s brain reeling in horror. He promptly hollowed his cheeks, collapsed back in his chair, and told her in failing accents that he was too ill for this. Molly wasn’t impressed.

“You boys need to get out of this house,” she scolded, “get some exercise.”

“Since the last time we set foot out the door, someone tried to kidnap Felix and put Draco in hospital, you’ll excuse me if we aren’t itching to try again!” Harry protested.

Molly waved that away. “Those men are in Azkaban, Lucius is hiding in Slovenia, and Narcissa has so many Aurors following her that she’s practically under house arrest. You’re perfectly safe. And it’s not as if the Burrow is crawling with kidnappers!”

“We didn’t think Grimmauld Place was, either.”

“Well, I’m here now, so we can get some work done.”

It took Draco all of a minute to discover that Molly’s idea of a small family wedding was wildly different from his own. Maybe because her immediate family constituted half the wizarding population of Britain, she was already dreaming of tents festooned with fairy lights and fountains of champagne tinkling in her garden. Draco blanched at the very thought (looking much more genuinely ill, Harry informed him, than he had when he tried to fake it) and demanded to know how many people she imagined would attend.

“We’ll keep it down to a few hundred,” she said briskly.

“A few _hundred?!_ ” Draco squeaked.

“Come now, Malfoy, this is _Harry Potter’s_ wedding! The society event of the decade!”

“Only if you ignore who he’s marrying. Face it, Molly, no one outside the Weasley family wants to watch their precious Savior marry a former Death Eater. And half the Weasleys will only show up because they’re afraid you’d hex them if they didn’t. You’ll be lucky to fill a garden shed with guests, let alone a grand pavilion!”

“You just leave that to me…”

“No, I don’t think I will.” He straightened up in his chair, looking mutinous. “I’m sorry, but this is my wedding, too, and I should have some say in who’s invited.”

She blinked at him, taken aback, then reached over to pat his hand in a motherly fashion. “Of course you do, dear. You just tell me who you want to invite, and I’ll see that they’re on the list. Your parents are out of the question, of course, but…”

“I was thinking more about who _won’t_ be invited,” Draco cut in.

“I beg your pardon?”

Draco shot a glance at Harry, looking for some sign of how he felt, then plowed ahead on his own. “I don’t want anyone who’s just there to see the Chosen One put his foot in it. No Ministry officials, except Shacklebolt and Arthur of course, no Press, no distant Weasley relations I’ve never heard of, no rabid Anti-Pureblood crusaders…”

“Mercy. Who _do_ you want there?”

“Your immediate family. My Aunt Andromeda. Teddy, of course.” He paused, thinking, then shrugged. “That’s it.”

“I want Kingsley to officiate,” Harry reminded him.

“Right. Shacklebolt. That’s enough to fill your shed and then some, if you include the Weasley Spawn.”

Molly pursed her lips in disapproval, but Draco could see the affection lurking in her eyes. “What about attendants?”

“Bob is my best man,” Draco said immediately, “with Ron as his stand-in.”

“Teddy is mine,” Harry added.

“Well.” She tapped her quill on the table, leaving ink spots in its wake. Draco could tell by the set of her lips that she wasn’t happy and she wasn’t going to go down without a fight. “Your friends will be very disappointed not to be included.”

Draco snorted. “I haven’t got any friends who aren’t Weasleys or Weasley spouses. Except Lovegood,” he amended, after a moment’s thought.

“We can invite Luna,” Harry said quietly.

“If we invite my friend, we have to invite all of yours. Then we’re back to a bloody pavilion and champagne fountains. Honestly, Potter, isn’t the point of a small family wedding to invite only family?”

“I don’t want you to feel surrounded by Gryffindors.”

“One Ravenclaw isn’t going tip the scales. Besides, Andromeda was a Slytherin.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, young man,” Molly cut in. “Of course we’ll invite Luna. Along with Xenophilius, the Longbottom boy and his grandmother, Minerva McGonagall, Hagrid of course… Kingsley, Gawain Robards…”

“No!” Harry snapped, cutting her off. “Not Robards.”

“But he’s your supervisor, Harry. It’s only polite to…”

“I don’t want him there, and I’d have to invite half the DMLE with him! Draco’s right about the Ministry. Kingsley and Arthur are basically family, and neither of them would dream of leaking our plans to the Press, but I don’t trust anyone else in that place to keep their mouths shut.” He smiled at Molly to take the sting out of his words. “I agree with you that some of our friends should join us. Neville and Luna for sure. McGonagall and Hagrid. And Aberforth Dumbledore, if he’ll agree to leave Hogsmeade, which I doubt. But Draco’s right that we have to keep this small, if only to keep it _quiet._ And we must keep it quiet, as long as possible. Certainly until we get this mess with Draco’s inheritance sorted out.”

“Hmph,” Molly snorted. “So you’re going through with that nonsense?”

Draco felt a pang of remorse at her words. He really did love Molly Weasley, if not precisely as a mother, then at least as a kindly Aunt, and he wanted to please her. It was his instinctive reaction to people he loved—this need to please, to win approval, to make them proud. It had gotten him into trouble all his life, mostly because he loved the wrong people, but he’d never been able to stop himself. Now, thankfully, he had people like Harry and Molly and Arthur to please, people who loved him no matter what idiotic things he did, so he made fewer and less hideous mistakes in his quest to win their approval. But it hurt when they were disappointed in him. Even when he knew they were wrong.

“You don’t think I should break the inheritance,” he said softly, trying to keep the injured note out of his voice.

He must have failed, because Molly gave him a look like she expected him to burst into tears at any moment. “Well, I understand why you’re angry with your parents, but I don’t believe in breaking up families. Any families.”

“They didn’t give us a choice!” Harry objected, stepping in to defend Draco in his usual Gryffindor way. “They hauled Draco up in front of the Wizengamot, accused him of abusing his son, then attacked him in the street!”

“And that was reprehensible. But you’ll only make matters worse by taking their grandson away from them.”

“It can’t get any worse. Lucius has gone completely round the twist, and Narcissa’s not far behind.”

Draco flinched at that and looked away to the fireplace, where the salamander was basking in the coals.

“I’m sorry, Draco. I am.” Harry placed a hand on his thigh and gave it a squeeze. “But you know it’s true. That kidnapping business was the last straw. We have to put a stop to this before someone gets killed, because if they try to take Felix again, I _will_ kill someone!”

“And you don’t think threatening to cut their grandson out of their lives will virtually guarantee that they’ll try to take him again?” Molly demanded.

“They won’t want him, if he isn’t a Malfoy.”

She tsk-ed and shook her head. “He’s still their grandson, whatever his last name.”

“They won’t want him,” Harry said doggedly.

“It’s true,” Draco murmured. “They only want him as the next Black-Malfoy heir. If he can’t inherit their legacies, they’ll leave him alone, and that’s all I want. For them to leave my son alone.”

Molly gave him an exasperated look, then sighed and patted his arm. “Shall we get back to the wedding?”

Draco blinked at her, caught off guard, then recognized the change of subject for what it was—strategic retreat—and grinned. “You want more guests?”

“I want to talk about food. And music and flowers and…”

A sudden tingle in the wards told Draco that someone was flooing in. He exchanged a glance with Harry, knowing he’d felt it too, then turned expectantly toward the doorway. If this interruption spared him a discussion of the rival merits of the Weird Sisters, Transylvanian Death Metal and Celestina Warbeck, he would welcome it. No matter who it was.

Feet clattered on the stairs and a familiar voice called, “Harry! Draco! I’ve found it!”

Granger burst into the room a moment later, eyes bright and face aglow. Her smile could have lit the catacombs beneath Gringotts. She swept them all with a triumphant gaze and held up a book approximately the size and weight of a tombstone.

“I’ve found it! The ritual we need! It was in this manuscript I borrowed from the Early Republic collection in Capitoline Library—honestly, I can’t believe I didn’t think of the Ancient Romans before—I mean, _obviously_ they would be the ones to do this kind of thing, only I…”

“Oi! Hermione!” Harry cut in. “Take a breath!”

She gulped down a mouthful of air, only then glancing around the room and noticing her mother-in-law seated at the table. “Oh! You must be planning the wedding! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt, I just couldn’t wait to…”

“You didn’t interrupt, and we’d very much like to hear what you found, but you need to slow down and _breathe_.”

As Granger once more sucked in an obedient breath, Harry turned to Draco and muttered, “It must be good to get her in this state.”

Draco just rolled his eyes. Anything written on parchment could get Granger in this state, including last week’s grocery list.

Hermione huffed at them in irritation, then turned to Molly. “I’ve been looking for a way to sever the magical connection between Felix and Draco’s family.”

“I see.”

Molly’s tone was heavy with disapproval, but Granger was, as usual when in an academic fervor, oblivious.

“Yes, it’s much trickier than you might think because he’s the last of the Malfoy and Black bloodlines—if you discount Teddy, which of course we must, unfortunately—but according to a Roman Warlock called Venerius, it was done quite a lot in the Old Republic. He even documents the ritual! Right here!”

She hefted the book onto the table with a resounding _thud_ and opened it to a page marked with a satin ribbon. The book was clearly ancient, made up of papyrus sheets covered in faded ink and hand-stitched into a leather binding of much later vintage. Rats had been chewing on the corners of the binding.

“You can see here,” she burbled, running her finger over the page, “how simple it is, once you understand the theory behind it!”

“It’s in Latin,” Molly said crushingly.

“Well, er, Malfoy can see…”

“Are you saying that the Ancient Romans did this all the time?” Draco demanded.

“Not _all the time_ , but quite often. Roman wizards, like their Muggle counterparts, had to have a certain amount of land and money to hold political office, which was _essential_ for Romans of good family. But if they had more than one son, they would have to split the estate between them, leaving none with enough to qualify. So, many families chose to have their second and third sons adopted by other prestigious families who needed heirs. It was actually quite sensible, if you think about it. The family keeps its legacy intact and passes it to the eldest—now only—son, while the adopted son inherits the fortune, social position, political influence and magical legacy of his new family, just as if he’d been born to it.”

“But first they’d have to cut him out of his old family!” Harry interjected.

“Right. They didn’t want to do anything so crude or demeaning as to disown him. He was still a wizard in good standing, from impeccable family, after all. But they had to sever the magical connection to one family before they could form it with the other.”

“Hermione, that’s _brilliant!_ ”

She flushed with pleasure. “Well, it was a tricky bit of research…”

“No, don’t you see?! You’ve really done it! You’ve found a way to cut Felix out of the inheritance, and to put Teddy _back in!_ ”

Dead silence met this pronouncement. Then, abruptly, Draco pushed back his chair and strode over to Granger. Catching her head between his hands, he kissed her first on one cheek, then the other, then on the forehead for good measure.

Pulling back, he looked into her wide, sparkling eyes and said, “You’re a bloody genius.”

 

**_To be continued…_ **


	9. Epilogue: Harry's Thing With Walls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took so long. I actually wrote a completely different end to this story-several versions of it-that I ended up dumping. I tried writing Harry and Draco's wedding, and while I came up with a lot of sweet, funny scenes, I couldn't find a central thread or theme that made it worth finishing. It seems like every Drarry story out there has a wedding scene in it, and we've all read so many of them that it seems kind of pointless to throw another on the pile.
> 
> So instead of a wedding, I give you a bit of fluff at Hogwarts. I hope you enjoy it. 
> 
> Thank you for reading the story! And please let me know what you think of it, now that it's done!

****— _Six Months Later_ —

 

Hogwarts was resplendent in its Christmas finery, decked out for the season from the highest spire to the deepest dungeon and frosted with a gleaming, perfect layer of snow to finish the picture. The Ministry had finally declared the castle fully restored, healed of all its hurts, and Headmistress McGonagall had decided to mark the occasion in style. She had invited every student who had attended school through the War Years, every soldier who had fought in the great battle, and every family member who cared to join the living or commemorate the dead. Professor Flitwick had expanded the Great Hall to hold them all, but still they spilled out into the rest of the castle and onto the grounds in a colorful, milling, chattering throng of happy revelers.

Harry was the guest of honor, though he downplayed that and tried not to draw attention to himself. This was not his first visit to Hogwarts since the war, and most of the memories had softened over time, so he didn’t flinch as he stepped through the doors. But he had never enjoyed the notoriety that clung to him as the Chosen One and Savior, and the last thing he wanted to do tonight was play the celebrity. He wouldn’t have come at all, if McGonagall had not personally requested it, and if his friends weren’t all looking forward to it with such excitement. Even Draco seemed pleased to be here. And Felix was starry-eyed with wonder. It was hard to remain sour and sullen in the face of their enjoyment.

The toasts and speeches were over. Harry had stayed safely in the background, standing with Draco and Felix on the edges of the crowd, and McGonagall had graciously avoided looking at him, even when she spoke of him and his accomplishments. Now, the formalities thankfully done, the room roiled and bubbled like potion in a cauldron as people clumped together to chat, wove through the crowd in search of friends, and danced to the strains of a small orchestra.

Harry stood in a group of old friends, Felix perched in his arms, pretending to chat, but most of his attention was on the dance floor. Draco was out there with McGonagall, showing off his perfect sense of timing, dazzling the onlookers with his infinite grace. Or dazzling Harry, anyway, who had no sense of timing and all the grace of a three-legged Erumpent on the dance floor. Harry was grateful to have Felix as an excuse not to dance, but he hated sharing Draco. With anyone.

“My second started cutting his teeth at six weeks,” Cho was saying, while she tickled Felix’s drool-slicked cheek. “I couldn’t believe it! I didn’t think it was possible!”

“I swear mine was _born_ with teeth,” Ginny groaned. “He certainly bit me often enough! But Hugo is the Drool King. He’ll teethe on anything, including Malfoy’s hair. Seriously. Does Felix do that, Harry?”

Harry wasn’t listening. He was too busy looking for a flash of silver-gilt among the bobbing heads of the dancers.

“Oi! Potter!”

“Hm?” His eyes jerked back to Ginny, brows raised in confusion. “What?”

“Honestly, Harry, you’re hopeless.”

“Ginny was asking if Felix uses Malfoy’s hair as a teething ring,” Neville said, a smile twinkling in his eyes. He stood with his very pregnant wife, Hannah, tucked into his side, and both expectant parents were listening avidly to everything their more experienced friends had to say on the subject of babies.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. All the time.” Harry grinned down at his drooling, beaming son, caught by the light in those winter-grey eyes. “It’s a family tradition by now.”

Felix squealed at him and made a grab for his glasses.

“So’s that,” Ginny laughed. “How many pairs of glasses have you lost to grabbing fingers over the years?”

“Hermione fixes them for me.”

“Nev tells me you adopted Felix on your wedding day,” Hannah put in, her voice soft and a bit hesitant.

“That’s right. We’ve cut all ties to the Malfoy family—even magical ties—and become a family of our own.”

“Hermione tried to explain her Roman ritual,” Ginny said, grinning, “but it made no kind of sense to me. All I care about is that our little Felix, here, is no longer a Malfoy, even if he still looks like one.”

“He looks like his father,” Harry said sternly, “and his father is a Potter. Isn’t he, Felix?” he added, laughing down into his son’s wide eyes. “Just like you and me. All of us Potters.”

“Well, maybe after Lucius dies you can convince the rest of the world that it’s Potters who have silver-blond hair and grey eyes, not Malfoys. But as long as that old bugger is still around…”

Harry was no longer listening. His eyes had wandered back to the dance floor, and he was once more lost in contemplation of his husband—his gorgeous, _glorious_ husband—as he swept by with McGonagall in his arms.

Draco looked particularly spectacular tonight. Maybe it was the leather trousers and Mod boots. Or the ice-blue dress robes, embroidered in sapphire and silver. Or the makeup—all black eyeliner and metallic blue lipstick. Or the streaks of blue woven through his soft plait. Or the…

No, it was none of that. It was simply Draco himself, who seemed to blaze like a burst of blue-and-silver magic in night. And the perfect circle of alternating diamonds and sapphires around his finger, proclaiming to all who cared to look that he was Harry’s. Married. _Taken_.

Harry would never get used to seeing that ring on his husband’s finger. He never wanted to get used to it. He wanted to feel that hit of adrenaline in his blood every time his eyes found it again, feel the flush climb into his cheeks, the pressure build in his chest, the heat pool in his groin… He never wanted to grow complacent. He never wanted to take their love and lust and joy for granted.

“Why don’t you just go dance?”

Once again, Ginny’s wry voice pulled him away from contemplation of his husband to grapple with the exigencies of conversation. And once again, he found himself all at sea.

“What?”

“Go dance with the man, instead of staring at him like a lovesick puppy. I’ll hold Felix.”

“Oh. No…” Harry’s blush deepened. “I don’t dance.”

“I expect Malfoy could teach you. And I’m quite sure you’d rather be out there with him than standing around with us.”

“No. Really. I’m fine. And anyway, I think the song is over.”

Sure enough, the music was fading out on a long note and the dancing couples were breaking up. A foolish grin spread over Harry’s face, as he saw Draco and McGonagall heading their way, arms linked. They stepped up to the little group.

“Well, that was lovely,” McGonagall said in her brisk way. “Thank you, Malfoy.”

Draco gave her a courtly bow, as he let go her arm and moved to Harry’s side. “It was my pleasure. But it’s Potter, now, not Malfoy.”

McGonagall pursed her lips. “Hmph. I can’t call you Potter.”

Draco gave her a gleaming smile. “ _Mister_ Potter will do.”

Her brows rose speculatively. “Marriage seems to agree with you, _Mister_ Potter.”

“It does.” He leaned provocatively into Harry’s side. “Very much.”

“And this must be little Felix,” she said, her gaze shifting to the baby in Harry’s arms.

“No,” Draco corrected her, “this is my son, Bob. Bob, say hello to the Headmistress.”

Felix stared at McGonagall—her square spectacles, uncompromising face, tartan robes and hat wreathed in holly—and gave her a gap-toothed smile. Then, cooing and gurgling in the most enchanting way possible (Harry was sure that no baby in all of History had ever been as enchanting as Felix, unless it was Felix’s father), reached out his little hands for Draco. Without hesitation or concern for his fantastically expensive robes, Draco plucked Felix from Harry’s arms and cradled him against his chest. Felix gave a shriek of delighted laughter that turned heads all around them, grabbed Draco’s blue-streaked plait, and shoved it in his mouth.

At that moment, Ron and Hermione threaded their way out of the crowd on the dance floor and joined them. Ron took one look at the thick plait hanging ludicrously over Felix’s chin and gave the boy an approving nod.

“Good on you, mate. Upholding the family tradition.”

“Still have that bezoar?” Draco asked.

Ron slapped his pocket. “Always. Why? Afraid Harry’s trying to poison your son with hair dye?”

“It never hurts to be prepared.”

McGonagall eyed the former Slytherin—dressed head-to-toe like a gorgeous piece of jewelry—and the boy in his arms with a fondness that Harry had never thought to see in her eyes. Not when looking at Draco Malfoy, at any rate.

“You are a scamp, Mr. Potter. How is it that I never noticed that before?”

“Very likely because I was a Slytherin, and we all look the same to you Gryffindors.”

“Or because he wasn’t a scamp at school,” Ron cut in, “he was a vicious, little git with a viper’s tongue.”

Draco nodded equably, his eyes sparkling with laughter when they met Ron’s. “Also very likely.”

McGonagall chuckled aloud at that and turned her attention back to Felix. Giving the child a stern look, she said, “What _is_ your proper name, young man?”

Draco jiggled him slightly in his arms, getting him to look up, then said softly, “Tell the Headmistress your name, Bob. Go ahead.” When the baby gurgled at him, the plait still dangling from his mouth, he chided, “You can’t enunciate properly with a mouthful of hair.”

Felix obediently spat out the plait and waited, eyes turned adoringly up to his father. Draco smiled his approval, then urged, “Now, say it for me. _Bob_.”

“B-b-b-bbbb!” Felix sputtered, spraying Draco with spittle.

“ _Bob_. You can say it. _Bob._ ”

“B-b-b _-ahh!_ ”

Draco favored him with a triumphant smile. “That’s my brilliant, little urchin!”

“Oh, no, you don’t!” Harry cried, snatching Felix from Draco’s arms and pulling him into his own chest. “Try again, little man. Tell them your _real_ name! Come on! _Fff-_ elix…”

Everyone watched, faces alight with laughter, as Felix threw himself into what was clearly a favorite game with his parents. Gaze fixed raptly to Harry’s face, he watched his mouth move—just as he had Draco’s a moment before—and tried to mimic it.

“Fffff!”

“That’s it, love. Ffffelix!”

“Fffffp!” Drool sprayed everywhere, dotting Harry’s glasses and dampening Ron’s robes, but Harry took it as a win.

“You heard him! He just said his initials! FFP. Felix Felicis Potter.”

“Ffffp!” Felix said again, much to Harry’s delight and Draco’s disgust.

“That’s cheating, Potter! Not that I would expect anything better from you.”

“I’m sorry? Cheating? Gryffindors do not cheat.”

“Initials are not a name. And any drooling infant will make that noise, given enough encouragement.”

“Just as any baby will shout _Bah!_ if you coach him long enough.”

“All right, you two, that’s enough,” Hermione chided. “You’ve been married for less than six months, and already you speak to each other that way?”

Everyone in the group—Neville, Hannah, Cho, Ginny, even McGonagall—turned to stare at her in disbelief, but it was Ron who pointed out the obvious.

“’Mione, they’ve _always_ spoken to each other that way!”

“Including at their own wedding,” Neville added.

Before anyone could respond to this, Blaise Zabini came up with Luna on his arm. Blaise was his usual dapper self, outshone only by Draco’s finery, while Luna looked as daft and lovely as ever. She wore sober enough robes of forest green, but she had branches of holly woven into her long hair and real snowflakes—engorged and spelled not to melt—dangling from her ears. A crown of snow roses sat on her head, and a handful of live fairies darted among the flowers, twinkling silver and gold as they moved.

“I found her out in the garden, raiding the flowerbeds,” Blaise informed Ginny, as he slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her close.

“Is that where you got the roses, Luna?” Ginny asked.

Luna put up a hand to touch her flower crown and smiled dreamily. “Aren’t they beautiful? The fairies were annoyed ’til I told them they could come along. They’re afraid I’ll crush their homes, you see.”

“Those fairies don’t belong inside, Miss Lovegood,” McGonagall informed her, but there was no bite to her words. Like the rest of them, she knew Luna too well to argue with her odd starts. “If you excuse me, I promised Professor Slughorn the next waltz, and it sounds as if the orchestra is about to oblige. Enjoy yourselves.”

With a smile for the group at large, a nod of thanks to Draco for the dance, and a quick clasp of Harry’s arm, she was gone.

Luna watched her stride away, then looked vaguely around and seemed to notice Harry’s presence for the first time. “Hello, Harry. It’s so nice to see you here. I was afraid you wouldn’t come because of the crowds.”

“I couldn’t miss seeing Hogwarts healed and beautiful again,” Harry said.

“Oh, yes. I miss it dreadfully sometimes.” Turning her slightly protuberant eyes on Draco, she said, “You look lovely tonight, Draco. Would you like some of my roses? They would go perfectly with your robes.”

“Er, no thank you, Luna. I wouldn’t want to upset the fairies.”

“They won’t mind. They like to be close to beautiful things.”

Ron rolled his eyes and chortled at that. “Draco Malfoy wearing a flower crown full of live fairies. This I need to see.”

Draco narrowed his eyes at Ron and said, with poisonous sweetness, “I would look spectacular in a flower crown full of live fairies, but as it happens, I have something better to do than put on a fashion show for a classless Philistine like you, Weasel.”

“Yeah?” Ron taunted, grinning. “Like what?”

“Dance with my husband. Harry, give Bob to Granger and dance with me.”

“I can’t dance,” Harry protested.

“Obviously, but I dance well enough for both of us.” When Harry continued to splutter, making no move to obey, Draco crossed his arms and glared at him. “Would you rather that I dance with Chang? Or _Zabini?_ ”

Harry cast a doubtful look at Blaise—at his perfect brown skin, his shrewd eyes, his square shoulders and tight arse—and promptly thrust Felix into Hermione’s arms. “Watch him for me, yeah?”

“Honestly, Harry,” she laughed, as she cradled Felix against her shoulder. “You are disgracefully easy to wind up.”

“I want to dance with my husband,” Harry said doggedly. In that instant, he almost believed it.

“Sure, you do,” Ron drawled.

“I do. Come on, Draco.”

Grabbing Draco by the arm, Harry let his friends’ laughter goad him toward the dance floor. His determination carried him out into its center, where he stalled out, helpless in the face of certain humiliation, but Draco took pity on him. Placing Harry’s arms around his waist, he looped his own around the other man’s neck and began to sway gently in time to the music.

“See?” he whispered, eyes glinting playfully up at Harry. “It’s easy.”

“Just don’t move any more than this. No… _steps_.”

Draco chuckled softly. “Prat.”

“I have a public image to uphold. I can’t embarrass myself in front of the entire wizarding world.”

“You did that when you married me, oh Chosen One. Everything else is gravy.”

“Now who’s being a prat?” Harry bent to steal a quick kiss from him. Then he murmured, “Why this sudden desire to dance?”

“So we could do this, you git.” Draco stretched up to kiss Harry again, clinging to his lips and caressing them with his tongue.

Harry sighed and tightened his hold on the body in his arms, lifting Draco nearly off his feet. They kissed long and deeply, while their bodies moved eagerly together and their cocks filled. By the time they broke apart, Harry was intensely grateful for the concealment of his robes.

“You’re killing me,” he breathed into the hair over Draco’s ear. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

“And go where?” Draco countered.

“Does it matter? This castle is full of walls…”

Draco laughed down low in his throat, stepped swiftly out of Harry’s arms, and took his hand. Then they were striding through the crowd, making for the doors and the castle beyond.

The entry hall was full of people. Draco instinctively headed for the dungeons, but Harry drew him toward the main stairway instead. They bounded up the stairs, ignoring the eyes of half a hundred partiers on their backs. When they reached the first floor, they found a few strolling couples there before them, so they continued upward, now laughing and exchanging heated looks as they went.

On the fifth floor, Harry decided that they were safe from prying eyes. He drew Draco into the corridor to their left and found an alcove between two suits of armor. Windows lined the opposite wall—tall, unshuttered, flooded with moonlight reflecting off the snow—but the shadows in their alcove were deep and concealing.

Draco leaned into the cold stone and gazed up at Harry, laughing softly. “You and your walls.”

“You have to admit it’s perfect.”

“Perfect,” Draco breathed, as he brought his mouth to Harry’s and opened it in invitation.

Harry groaned and plunged into the kiss… into Draco’s mouth… into the giddy delight of claiming his husband in the silent halls of this beloved castle. The castle where he’d first seen Draco Malfoy. Watched him. Wanted him. Loved him, even if he could never say it aloud, even to himself. This place had always been magical to Harry, and all those years watching Draco across classrooms, halls and the Quidditch pitch had only intensified the magic. Made it more special to him.

He had burned for Draco nearly every minute that he’d spent in this castle but had never touched him except in anger. Now they were back. Together. Bound to each other for life. And Harry felt as if the entire castle were celebrating with them. It hummed through his bones—the delight, the approval, the glorious _magic_ of their first and forever home. It wanted him to have Draco. Right here, against its walls.

Harry reached beneath the other man’s robes, pushing them aside, finding his flies. He had the leather trousers open and his hands inside them in seconds. Then his fingers touched warm, smooth flesh. He groaned again and thrust harder with his tongue. Draco moaned in answer, angling his hips forward, into Harry’s hands.

“This is why you wore them, isn’t it?” Harry mumbled against metallic blue lips, smearing the paint with his words. “Because you knew I’d find a wall for us.”

“Not hard to find a wall in Hogwarts… Fuck! Harry!” he gasped, as fingers worked between his cheeks and teased his hole.

“Say it. Say you knew I’d have you tonight.”

“I knew it.” Draco kissed him again, bit at his lower lip, and growled, “I made sure of it!”

“Those fucking trousers…”

“Get them off me, Potter. Fuck me up against the wall.”

Harry complied without a moment’s hesitation, stripping off Draco’s boots, trousers and pants with his hands and opening his own clothing with magic. Then he had Draco’s long legs wrapped around his hips and Draco’s too-tight arse caressing his length and Draco’s wet cock in his fist. And for a few blissful minutes, Hogwarts had never seemed so much like home.

Harry came hard, driving his husband’s slighter body into the wall, then took Draco apart with a few expert twists of his hand.

When Draco’s shuddering had eased, he reluctantly lowered his feet to the floor and leaned into Harry, letting the taller man bear his weight. They stood together with Harry’s come running down their legs and Draco’s spattering their shirts, while their cocks softened and the sweat cooled on their bodies.

Then Harry spoke, breaking the sated silence. “Do you ever think about what it would’ve been like if we’d started this back in school?”

“Fucking against walls?”

“Mm.”

“It’s all I thought about for seven years.”

Harry pushed slightly away to gaze down at him. “Seven? Really?”

“Well, six, if you don’t count that last year, when you were gone and I was losing my mind.”

“You pictured us fucking against the castle walls since we were eleven.” He cocked an eyebrow at his blushing husband. “Seriously.”

“Since the first time I saw you on a broomstick.”

“When you were stealing Neville’s remembrall?”

Draco nodded. “The walls didn’t come into it until later—’til I figured out what two boys could actually get up to when naked and alone together—and they were not honestly my first choice. I was always more intrigued by the notion of being pushed back on a desk or bent over a bench in the Quidditch stands.”

“But you… you wanted me all that time.”

“Of course I did.” He gave Harry an odd look, one corner of his mouth twitching up in disbelief. Then he reached up to wipe a thumb across Harry’s lips and spell away the blue lipstick that smeared them. “You knew that.”

Harry shook his head, almost frantically. “I didn’t! I _hoped._ I mean, I fantasized about it and wanked myself raw in the showers, but I never _knew._ ”

“What would you have done, if you’d known?” Draco asked, his voice trembling ever so slightly.

“Fucked you up against every wall in the castle!” Harry cried.

“That would’ve taken at least six years.”

“And probably gotten us expelled, but I don’t care! I would’ve done it anyway! Bloody hell, Draco, just thinking about what we could’ve gotten up to makes me so… so…”

“Hard?” Draco suggested shakily, his hand slipping down to grasp Harry’s thickening cock.

“I need you again. So badly! Let’s find another wall.”

“Can’t we just use this one?”

“And waste our chance? We have to move across the hall, at least.”

He fastened his arms around Draco’s waist and lifted him from his feet. In a few strides, he crossed to the wall of moonlit windows and shoved Draco up against the buttress between two of them. Draco grunted in pain but instantly wrapped his legs around Harry’s hips and welcomed him in.

Their second fuck in five minutes was longer, slower, but no less heated. Harry stroked in and out of Draco’s body, pushing him hard into the stone with each thrust, while Draco clung fiercely to him. On the third stroke, Draco found just the right angle for his hips to bring Harry’s cock against that magic spot inside him. He was sobbing with pleasure in seconds. Harry watched him let go, open himself, curl and clench with need, while his skin flushed, his face softened and his eyes rolled up beneath his lashes.

It was beautiful. The most beautiful thing Harry had ever seen. Draco Potter coming undone on his cock, lost to everything but his need for everything Harry had to give.

“Harry!” he gasped, clutching frantically at Harry’s arms as the first tremors took him. “ _Harry!_ ”

“I’m here. Come for me, love.”

Draco cried out again—no words in it this time—pulled his knees up to his shoulders, and came in a hot, sticky rush across his heaving stomach. Harry leaned into him, holding him up with his weight and hips, burying himself in that lovey arse as he felt the sweet, sparking heat begin to shoot up his own spine. His belly clenched. His cock twitched. Draco felt it, clung to him, whimpered a plaintive, “Harry…” and the orgasm erupted in his guts.

He emptied himself into Draco, pumping hard, fucking the come deep into him and groaning as the waves hit him again and again. Then, finally, they eased. His muscles turned to water. His knees gave out. They both sank to the floor, Draco still sitting astride Harry’s lap and riding his cock.

Harry crouched there, holding Draco in both arms, and kissed his swollen, blue-smeared lips. They were wet with tears. Draco sobbed quietly as he pushed his tongue deep into Harry’s mouth. Harry welcomed it, stroked it, then pulled gently away. Draco was still shaking.

“Are you all right?”

“That was only the second wall and it almost killed me,” he answered in a thick, damp whisper. “I don’t think I’m going to survive this.”

“It was a gift from the castle. It’s happy we’re together.”

“Have you lost your mind?”

“It’s true. I felt it the first time. It’s been waiting since we were students here, now it’s finally got us together and it wants to make sure we stay that way.”

“That’s the biggest load of tripe I’ve ever heard.”

“Aren’t you glad our castle approves?”

“Git.” Draco kissed him again, lingered over it, then shoved the hair back from his face to expose his lightening bolt scar. Pressing another kiss to that—and probably leaving a blue lip print in his wake—he murmured, “McGonagall wants me to teach here, did you know?”

“What?” Harry started up in surprise but found he couldn’t really move with Draco still astride his lap. “She what?”

“She says that she’ll help me revise for my NEWTs, and if I pass them, have a teaching position here. She knows I’ve not been able to find a decent job because of my name and my Dark Mark, and she thinks I’d make a good teacher.”

“What would you teach? Potions?”

He shook his head, smirking. “Defense Against the Dark Arts.” Harry gave a startled laugh, and Draco’s smirk turned to a grin. “Rubbish, I know, but that’s what she said.”

“It’s not rubbish! You’d be brilliant! Do you want to do it?”

“If I did, we’d have a chance to try out the rest of the walls. Maybe test your theory about the castle approving of us.”

“I’m telling you, it does! And it’s made almost entirely out of magic, so I’m betting that its approval means a lot.”

Draco’s eyes narrowed. “In what way?”

“Well… maybe if we kept it happy enough by fucking against its walls, it would help us make that little brother or sister for Felix…”

“Honestly, Potter, do you never give up?”

“Nope!” Harry gave him a beaming smile. “So, want to try?”

“Is that the only reason you think I should work here?”

“Of course not. I think you’d be a brilliant teacher.”

Draco eyed him for a long minute, then retorted, “Bollocks! You know perfectly well I’d be pants at it!”

“No!”

“Worse than Snape!”

“ _No!_ Draco…”

“Save it, Potter. I have a better idea.”

“Really?”

Harry felt a reluctant spurt of curiosity. He knew that Draco had never been particularly happy about his life of leisure as Harry Potter’s Kept Man. It wasn’t that they needed more money, or that Draco had been raised to value a life of productive labor. It was simply that he felt useless and, often, bored. He wanted to be something more than a pretty face or a witty dinner companion. He wanted to contribute—to his own sense of self-worth, if nothing else—but the Wizarding World consistently refused to let him. Draco had tried and tried to find a career, a job, or even a volunteer position that would keep him busy and satisfied, only to be rebuffed at every turn. Felix had helped, giving him something to do all day, but Harry knew better than to think that burping babies and cleaning nappies would be enough. Not when Draco had so much to prove.

But knowing that his husband needed a career and believing that he could achieve it were two very different things. He had been disappointed so many times. McGonagall’s solution seemed so perfect, but if Draco wouldn’t accept it…

“What idea?”

“I think, if McGonagall is willing to help me pass my NEWTs, I’ll study Magical Law.”

Harry blinked at him in surprise.

“There are plenty of people out there like me—left in limbo by the war, suffering at the hands of the Ministry but with no one willing to fight for them. Well, I’m willing,” he shot Harry a provocative look from the corners of his eyes, “and I enjoy making a spectacle of myself in front of the Wizengamot.”

Harry said nothing for a long minute, digesting this, while Draco’s smile died and the smug triumph in his eyes faded. Finally, he prompted, “Well? Is it that hard to imagine?”

“What? No! No…” Harry ventured, still thinking hard about everything Draco had said. “I think it’s brilliant.”

“You don’t look like you think it’s brilliant.”

“I’m just trying to work out all the angles, all the potential obstacles, so you don’t… you know…”

“Get blasted off my broomstick again? I know that’s the most likely outcome but don’t you think McGonagall’s support will make a difference? And it’s not as if I need to make a living wage. If I only represent former Death Eaters who can’t pay me a copper Knut, it won’t matter. I’ll be doing something I enjoy and, just maybe, helping someone who has nowhere else to go.”

“Like I said. Brilliant. There’s only one flobberworm in the ointment.”

“What’s that?” Draco asked, his brow arching.

“You won’t be able to work when you’re hugely pregnant and don’t fit in your barrister’s robes.”

Draco gave a spurt of laughter and pulled Harry’s face into his neck. “Good thing I’m never getting pregnant, then.”

“But if you do…”

“Potter, you’re a complete arse! Let’s go collect our son—the one we actually have, not the one you’ve concocted in your fevered brain. Or do you need to fuck me up another wall or two, first?”

 

When they finally returned to the Great Hall, they found the party in its later, more frenzied, more exhausting stages. The orchestra had made way for a four-piece pop band that sounded like alley cats being tortured with a Cruciatus Curse. The dancers—mostly the younger students—had shed their dress robes and were sweating profusely as they careened about the floor. Some guests were lolling at tables, drinks in front of them, while others had withdrawn from the cacophony to converse more privately. A large number seemed to have fled to the magically-warmed garden to do Merlin knew what.

Harry and Draco found their son in the anteroom off the dais, cuddled in Hermione’s lap on a couch that had obviously been conjured for the occasion. With one of Hermione’s powerful spells muting the noise from the Hall, the room was comfortable and fairly quiet. Several groups of people had retreated here to talk, and while they looked up with obvious interest when the Savior and his Death Eater spouse entered, none tried to intercept them as they moved over to the couch.

Hermione glanced up and smiled.

“There you are. I was wondering where you’d got to.”

“Just having a look round the castle,” Harry answered easily, “admiring the repair work.”

Ron smirked and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, that’s why Ferret’s shiny, blue lipstick is all gone.”

Draco ignored this sally and held out his hands for his son. “How’s my urchin?”

“Out like a candle, the little darling,” Hermione murmured as she handed him over. She watched in approval as he settled the sleeping baby in his arms. “You do that so well, Draco. I love watching you with him. I was just telling Neville,” she glanced at the Gryffindor, who sat nearby with Hannah, “that’s why I wanted to do that research for Harry…”

Draco stiffened, his eyes jumping to Harry and narrowing dangerously. “What _research?_ ”

“Honestly, Hermione, will you never learn to keep your mouth shut?” Harry sighed.

She flushed in embarrassment, but her eyes were sparkling with a familiar academic fervor that did not bode well for Harry. “I’m sorry, but when I saw him with Felix it reminded me, and I’m so excited to tell you! I’ve been looking into the Ancient Egyptians…”

“Looking into _what_ about the Ancient Egyptians?” Draco demanded.

“Their success with wizard pregnancies.”

“You did not. _You did not!_ Potter, you _incredible git!_ Do you have to share your romantic delusions with the entire _fucking world?!_ ”

“It’s not the world, just Hermione,” Harry protested, “and maybe they’re not delusions! You never know!”

“Of course they are, you imbecile! It’s all very well and good, pretending for fun, but you can’t just go around _telling people_ that you’re trying to get me up the duff! You’ll end up on the Closed Ward, if you aren’t careful!”

“No one’s going to lock me up, Malfoy…”

“Why? Because you’re the bloody _Chosen One?_ That doesn’t make you _sane!_ ”

“Actually,” Hermione began, only to be rolled over by Draco.

“And even if they don’t lock you up, they’ll know you’re an utter, fucking lunatic! Then I’ll be the laughingstock of the wizarding world, me and my bloody Dark Mark, married to a gibbering bedlamite…!”

“Draco, he’s not!”

He broke off and blinked at Hermione. “Not what?”

“A bedlamite. Or delusional.”

“You have to say that.” Draco’s scowl turned to a sneer. “You’re part of this… this _three-headed monster_.”

“I’m the _brains_ of the three-headed monster, and I’m telling you, he’s not crazy. I found it in some papyri rescued from the Library of Alexandria… honestly, I should have thought of the Egyptians months ago! They’re the obvious place to start, what with their restrictions on who can reproduce with whom and their utter disregard for sexuality or inbreeding…”

“Hermione!” Harry called sharply. “Oi! What are you trying to say?”

“Why, that the Egyptians created a series of spells for impregnating a wizard by his partner—usually his _brother_ , since they had such an obsession with the family line staying pure, which is thoroughly disgusting and _far_ worse than what Lucius and Narcissa did, if you ask me…”

“Merlin’s blood balls,” Harry breathed, “she found it.”

“Of course she found it, mate,” Ron chimed in. “This is Hermione we’re talking about. She _always_ finds it.”

“There’s really a way,” he insisted, turning on Hermione once more. “You found a way to get a wizard pregnant. A spell that we could use, right now, if we wanted to.”

“Not _a_ spell,” she corrected, “ _several_ spells, used throughout the pregnancy, and they’re very complex, requiring a huge amount of power. Only the most gifted wizard could… Oh.” She paused, suddenly realizing what she was saying, then broke out in a beatific smile. “If anyone could do it, you could, Harry! You and Malfoy! I’ll have to translate the document for you, since its in hieroglyphics, and then…”

“Fuck.”

The soft word came from just by Harry’s shoulder, and he turned to see Draco staring up at him with blank horror in his eyes.

“Draco?”

“You okay, mate?” Ron asked worriedly.

Draco just continued to stare at Harry, his mouth moving but no sound coming out of it.

Harry slipped an arm around him and gave him a reassuring squeeze. “It’s just research, love. No one’s getting anyone pregnant just yet.”

“Not ever, unless that’s what you want,” Hermione added, with a quelling look at Harry.

“Fuck.” Draco knocked his forehead sharply against the point of Harry’s shoulder. Then, with each repetition of the word, banged it a little harder. “Fuck, fuck, _fuck!_ ”

“Hey! You’ll hurt yourself! Draco, I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to do.”

Another sharp blow that made Harry wince. “ _Fuck!_ ”

“I’m not! I promise you!”

Draco finally looked up into his husband’s frowning face, his eyes bright with unshed tears and glazed with panic.

“Draco. Draco, my darling.” Harry pulled him close with one arm and cradled his head with his free hand, drawing him into a soft, loving kiss. “I promise you, it’s going to be okay.”

“Harry.” Draco pulled back to gaze at him with stricken eyes. “Oh, Harry.” He ducked his head again, buried his face in Harry’s shoulder, and wailed, “I am _sooo fucked!_ ”

 

**_Finis_ **


End file.
